


What is Faith (Just a Sequence of Grace and Gravity)

by liliwick_the_WORD



Category: PewDiePie - Fandom, Video Blogging & YouTube RPF, pewdiecry
Genre: #shovelallthezombies, Also bloody long chapters, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Explicit Language, How Lucky Can Two Guys Get When Surviving Near-Death Experiences, I tend to leave superlong review replies, M/M, Oh my GOD we made it to 1000 Kudos, Slow Build, Unreliable Narrator(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 255,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liliwick_the_WORD/pseuds/liliwick_the_WORD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here we go, Pewdie thinks, and charges through with a battle cry.</p><p>And stops when he finds no zombie on the other side of the door. There is someone there though, a living person, and he is covered in blood and guts and holding up a bloody shovel. They stare at each other in disbelief for a long time and Pewdie thinks he needs to say something to break the awkward silence between them.</p><p>"Heheh..uh, how's it goin' bro?" is the first thing he says to the first living person he comes across after three weeks of surviving the zombie apocalypse on his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, Real Person Fiction is not my forte. Except this needed to be written. Because a zombie apocalypse AU and PewdieCry give way to so many possibilities.
> 
> (Thanks, Pewds and Cry, for those zombie game co-ops. It does wonders for a girl's imagination.)
> 
> Title borrowed from Medic's "Grace and Gravity".
> 
> Also, massive, sincerest thanks to **suikalopolis** for encouraging me to take on this project. If it weren't for you, these ideas wouldn't have come into fruition.

> “Friendship isn’t about who you have known the longest. It’s about who came and never left your side.” – **Anonymous**

 

**01.**

He turns and sees a zombie standing there.

Its skin is sickly and pale and is on its way to rotting and there is dried blood coating its broken, misshapen nose. The poor man that this undead creature was before must have been killed recently, perhaps a few days ago, as the blood that bled out from the gaping hole in the middle of its back has stained the white striped business shirt it wears. It has not yet seen nor heard him come into the store of the abandoned gas station. It seems pretty occupied with banging its fists on a door which he is sure leads to where the storeroom is. He wonders whether the small, battered, blue Ford Fiesta parked outside used to be the dead man’s car and whether he can fish the car keys out once he bashes it on the head until it is properly dead.

But now he needs to go into that storeroom. His supplies are running out. He needs more bandages, more medicine, more food to last for a few more days. To him, a storeroom is a gold mine. There are plenty of things to scavenge for and collect if he comes across one that has not yet been raided. 

Silently, he adjusts his grip on the shovel he carries in his hands. He has other makeshift weapons that he has brought with him in his backpack but the shovel has been the most effective weapon against the undead and is therefore his favourite so far. The shovel’s blade has seen its fair share of zombie decapitations and has saved his life so many times that he lost count. He eyes the wooden floor between them and considers the possibility of whether creeping up on the creature may not be a good idea if the floor panes are likely to creak. Zombies can’t see or smell living things, he has learned a while ago. But they had _hear_ you perfectly.

He considers throwing a random object to the other side of the room to distract the creature and draw it away from the storeroom door so that he could run inside but this plan is stopped when he thinks of the possibility that the door may be locked. Even if there is a second of hesitation, the rattling of a doorknob can drive the zombie’s attention onto him and there is no way that he is going to take that risk. Which leaves one possible plan: to charge forward, shovel raised over his head, ready to strike the zombie down before it has a chance to turn around and attack him.

Cry quietly takes a deep breath and braces himself for the upcoming kill.

 

**_Three weeks ago_ **

It begins on an ordinary day. Except he misses out on what happens during the morning and afternoon hours of his daily life. His ‘day’ usually starts in the evening and carries on into the late night and early hours of the morning where he spends most of his time recording and editing videos. 

He doesn’t know how he can sleep through an entire day without being woken up at all but once he does, he notices that something is wrong. The rest of the house lies in semi-darkness and he cannot hear anyone downstairs. On the outside however, he hears the muffled noises of blasting car alarms and people shouting and car engines roaring past. A dog barks continuously from the house two doors down from his and someone has set the TV volume on too loud from an open window somewhere, spilling out to the world the sound of the broadcasting News. 

There is a yowling and scratching noise coming from the bathroom when he steps out onto the dark landing. Once he opens the bathroom door, he is almost knocked off his feet when his cat darts past him and flies down the stairs.

“Kitty!” he calls out in alarm because he has never seen her act like this before. He thinks he saw the whites of her eyes when she leapt out of the bathroom in a mad scramble. By the time he races downstairs, he hears the sound of the cat flap clattering against the door and knows that Kitty is gone.

He tries calling his sister and niece on the landline because it’s nearing five thirty in the evening so they should be back by now but freezes when he finds that the lines are busy. After trying half a dozen more numbers including the emergency services, he comes up with the same result. The mobile phone he retrieves from the folds of his bed sheets reveal that there is no signal. The last text message he received from anyone had been more than six hours ago, from Felix Kjellberg, who informed him he was heading to the airport to catch his flight home to Sweden. 

It is only then that the beginnings of panic start to seep in. _I can’t call anyone_ , he realises. _I can’t call anyone. What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on outside?_ He wants to step out the front door and find out but the amount of noise that’s happening outside his house is worrying. _Calm down_ , he tells himself instead as he pulls his gaze away from the front door. _Calm the fuck down_.

“The news,” he mutters aloud to himself after a while. His voice sounds hollow and scared in the empty room he’s in. It’s unnerving.

When he switches on the TV, he sincerely wishes he hadn’t.

“…We urge the public not to panic…”

“…Riots involving bizarre and violent behaviour– ”

“Phone networks are down, including internet connection–“

“Please stay indoors…”

“…The situation seems out of control…”

“People attacking each other–”

“…Evacuate to a safer place…”

“Stock up as much as you can…”

“…Please do not approach these people…”

Somehow he finds the words he hears from the news reporters fly over his head because he cannot believe what he is seeing. It is like a scene that is familiar in the movies. An aerial view of some part of the city which he vaguely recognises is shown and the camera footage zooms in on a mass of people staggering towards a line of riot policemen armed with shields and batons. The people in this strange group are deathly pale, their faces twisted, their eyes unblinking. From the couch he sits on, he feels a shudder go through his body. Something is terribly wrong about these people, something unnatural and sure enough, he almost startles in his seat when one of the group separates from her party, pounces onto the nearest policeman with such force that it knocks his helmet off and then sinks her teeth onto his bare face.

A fountain of dark blood shoots up.

“Oh my _god_ ,” he isn’t sure if he is the one who blurts this out because the reporter who is voicing over this footage utters this too before continuing to babble in disbelief and horror. All he knows now after that first bite is that the situation quickly turns into chaos. The line of policeman breaks and the mass of crazy, deathly pale people fall onto them and it is only when a policeman’s arm is torn off and two or three people begin to fight over it, ripping the flesh out of the arm to devour it, that the footage is cut short. The newsroom returns to the screen to reveal the newscasters’ stunned faces.

He takes off his glasses and presses the heels of his hands onto his closed eyes. He tries very hard to will himself to breathe normally.

For him, the footage he has seen is enough. He has seen enough images from movies and videogames and TV shows and comic books to guess what is going on. But this is surreal, he thinks, it’s impossible and it’s sick and it’s hard to accept that this is actually happening. Is this why the streets outside are loud and full of frenzied noises, of families leaving in their cars and zooming past to get to the main highway leading far away from here? Is this why the dog from two doors down can’t stop barking like mad and why Kitty ran away because they already sensed that this danger was coming? When did all this start? How can it happen when he spent the entire day fucking sleeping? And where the hell was– he gulps down his fear. Oh god, where the hell was his family? Are they okay? Did they try to call him like he did before and couldn’t get through? Where are they, are they safe? Where was his sister and niece? They didn’t get– Oh my god, where _are_ they?

The next thing he knows he is pacing up and down across the TV screen, many questions dropping into his mind like weights, carrying with them a fresh wave of anxiety and disbelief. How can all this be happening? Is this a joke? A hoax? He checks another news channel on TV, ignoring the fact that his palm is sweaty as he grips the remote control. For almost an hour, he surfs every channel and finds the same kind of reports, watches the same images of random chaos, of people blabbering about what they saw (“Saw him attack old Mr. Grayson. Bit him in the neck like some vampire”). One news channel reports many cases of people looting stores and stealing things in a desperate attempt to stock up on supplies. Another channel shows a footage of a highway congested with honking cars leading out of the city. He can’t believe this chaos, can’t believe it is happening right now.

And here he is, alone and stupidly stunned and standing in front of the TV, having missed the development of this hell throughout the duration of the day all because he had _slept_ through it.

Where was his sister and niece?

Panic keeps bubbling in his chest, making it hard for him to breathe. The thought of them out there, stuck in that traffic jam, thinking and worrying about him at home. The thought that they were rushing to get back to the house only to be ambushed by a mob of zomb– 

“ _No_!” he finds himself yelling. The remote control flies out of his hand and clatters onto the floor in several pieces. “They’re alive,” he tries to reassure himself, pushing the dreaded image away from his mind. “They’re okay. They could have escaped the city. They’re okay, they’re _alive_.”

In the end, he repeats this mantra over and over and again and again to stop himself from losing it completely.

 

Three days crawl by. He does not leave the house during those long three days except on the morning of the second day, when he opens the front door and is almost startled senseless at the sound of a piercing scream that fills the air. It’s distant and not anywhere near his neighbourhood but it nonetheless terrifies him enough to retreat into his house and lock the door. After that, he barricades himself in, pushes heavy furniture to block any points of entry around the house except his bedroom window, which presents the view of his neighbourhood.

He gets used to waking up in the mornings now because during the night time, it becomes eerily quiet and the dead silence unnerves him. In the daytime, he watches most of his neighbours leave, piling into their cars which are filled with suitcases and food and boxes before they drive off to join the long queue of vehicles all heading away from the city.

Apart from his bedroom window, the TV remains his only link to the world outside and after every hour, the situation worsens. He watches in a haze of disbelief and with a heavy heart of fear as panic and violence and blood descend upon the city streets. There are people being attacked and bitten and eaten alive. A helicopter flies overhead, passing a tall building spewing black smoke from an open window. There are screams and shouts everywhere, crowds of people running and pushing at each other in a desperate attempt to flee. He is horrified when he actually sees someone get trampled to death by the raging stampede. On another channel, they show a footage of some of the bitten victims turning and it is disturbing to see them stagger upright, their faces sickly pale, blood staining their clothes and gushing out of gaping wounds, their eyes blank and unblinking and with their rising, comes the craving for living flesh. 

All throughout this, he tries calling again and again to contact any of his family members or friends until, on the third morning, he picks up the house phone only to find the line dead. 

So far, he has been living on the food in the fridge and in the pantry and it’s enough to last him for at least a month. He worries about what will happen though once the month is up and considers that perhaps he should go out one day and scavenge for supplies in his neighbours’ homes now that they have left. 

It is on his fifth day that he finally sees them staggering around in his neighbourhood.

His first zombie, he realises with a start, is someone familiar to him. The man used to live down the road and worked at a strip mall about a mile away from here. Now he watches him – _it_ , lurch crookedly up the empty road. It is dragging its broken leg with it, the foot twisted at an awkward angle. Part of its face is falling off, the sallow skin around its lips sagging, revealing the bottom row of its yellowed teeth. From his window, he can faintly hear the creature moaning softly as it moves and after an hour of watching it totter from one house to another, more zombies follow after that first one and he slowly watches them take over his neighbourhood.

The situation, he realises, is becoming dangerous. The last thing he wants is to emerge from the house and face a hundred of these. It is best to leave the house, the neighbourhood, the city while there are still a few of them.

The five days of being holed up in the house has been difficult for him because he has been living on the hope that he is waiting for his family to come home. Now, the arrival of the zombies in his neighbourhood have compelled him to shift into survival mode. The movies he watched and the videogames he played gives him a sense of what he should do in these situations. He begins to think about which supplies to bring with him on his journey ahead and what kind of weapon he can take to defend himself. Canned food, bottles of water, bandages and first aid kit, flashlight and batteries, matches, booze (oh, definitely that), a Swiss army knife, his spare glasses. Maybe he should pop down to the basement and take a look in the toolbox. There might be a hammer or something sharp he could use as a weapon. 

This new sense of purpose gives him something to do instead of worry endlessly about the wellbeing of his missing family. He gets to it as soon as he can so by the sixth day, just as the sun begins to climb up the clear blue sky, he takes his chance when the coast is clear to emerge silently from his house, supporting a large backpack on his back and a metal baseball bat in his hand, and gives himself thirty seconds to say goodbye to his house, to his previous life and to the world he knows and has left behind, before he sprints down the road as fast as he can and does not look back.

 

He does not remember how much time has passed since he left the house but he is grateful when he finally comes across people who are not undead and not trying to eat him. So far, he has run into trouble a few times with zombies and the baseball bat he carries with him as a weapon turns out to be strong enough to push them off but not solid and sturdy enough to really kill them.

There are three people in the group he meets. They happen to encounter one another when he decides to scavenge for supplies at a looted chemist. (He’s getting the hang of taking things from shop shelves without paying now).

“Oh ho,” says the middle-aged woman with a cowboy hat as she looks him up and down. Her eyes crinkle as she smiles. “We haven’t seen a living person for days!”

“Hi,” he greets, automatically returning a smile and relief and happiness soar in his chest. It feels great to speak to somebody alive at last.

“What’s your name?” asks the friendly looking older man with the bushy brown moustache standing beside the woman.

He opens his mouth and realises with a shock that he has forgotten his own name. He gives it a second or two to recall it and when it gradually comes back into consciousness, he can’t believe his own name sounds foreign to him. Almost a week of isolation, running away from things that can eat him and with almost no contact with actual live human beings have made him forget the basic things about himself. How old was he again? When was the last time he hung out with his friends? What was the last thing his mother said to him? What videogame had he planned to play and record for his Youtube channel? Wait, he has a Youtube channel?

He certainly remembers he calls himself Cry when he’s on the internet. And Cry – he realises with a start because how can he even _forget_ – Cry is his gamer persona, Cry knows what to do in these scenarios, knows what the objective of the game is, knows that there are pieces of a puzzle lying around waiting to be solved. He thinks that if he takes on that persona, if he becomes Cry again (oh my god, how long ago was it when I played my last videogame? It felt like a hundred years to me), he is better able to handle the crazy world he lives in now. His mind-set will automatically shift into the appropriate one, the one that follows one route and one goal in mind, the one where he becomes focused and rational and purpose-driven and in control of himself. He thinks – it’s like playing _The Walking Dead_ or _The Last of Us_. It’s just another zombie apocalypse videogame. The important thing right now is to stay alive and not die. 

Because if you die, there is no restart button. If you die, you stay dead. Or worse – come back as one of _them_.

So the name he gives to this group of people is “Cry” and he deliberately tucks his real name back into the recesses of his mind.

 

There is one guy his age in this small group of three people he travels with. His name is Thomas and like him, he has lost his family and is trying to find a way to reunite with them. It’s amusing how Thomas doesn’t know him at all from Youtube.

“Marilyn and George found me the same way they found you,” Thomas explains as they collectively make their way across the thankfully deserted street. “Except I was hanging around my brother’s school, hoping to find him.”

“Did you find any clue where he could be?” is what he asks Thomas. He feels a buzz of worry in his chest and tries not to think about his missing niece. 

“Not much,” Thomas sighs wearily. “There was nobody there. No school kids. But I noticed the school buses are missing so chances are the kids were driven away from the chaos. Maybe my brother went with them. I just don’t know where they could have gone.”

“Don’t you worry too much ‘bout that,” croons Marilyn, the middle-aged cowboy-hat wearing lady walking ahead of them. She cannot help but overhear their conversation. Beside her, the moustachioed man, George, carefully balances an impressive rifle on one arm. He isn’t looking back at them but they both know he is listening in on them too because he says, “They must have gone out of the city and headed to the next state. That’s where there’s help. That’s where it’ll be safe. It said so on the news.”

Beside him, something uneasy forms on Thomas’s face, as if he doesn’t look quite convinced and Marilyn shifts her crinkling eyes from Thomas to settle on him. “What ‘bout you, Cry? Where you headed?”

Cry. Oh yes, he is called Cry now. He needs to get used to actual people calling him this. To him, Cry has always been a nickname, a persona he wears when he’s online as well as a part of him that he keeps separate from real life. Now, he takes on that persona just so he can come to terms with a reality that he still cannot fully accept.

“Just out of here,” Cry answers. “Also looking for my family. They went missing so maybe they escaped the city while they could.”

“It’s good to hope,” says Marilyn enthusiastically. “It keeps us goin’. I’m expectin’ to see my grandson once we get to the next state. Fingers crossed.”

Cry finds that he rather likes Marilyn and George. They are optimistic, cheerful people. Although he is sure they are bothered about the chaos happening around them and are worried sick about their families, they don’t let this fact bring them down. Because of this, he finds their cheerfulness contagious. 

The only thing that seems to keep the group’s morale down is Thomas, who remains immune to the couple’s optimism. He stays quiet most the time, looking distracted by his own thoughts. Even after Cry coaxes him to reveal more about himself, Thomas goes back into a daze after speaking a few sentences. Cry wants to ask him what’s wrong – what’s _really_ wrong with him – because his initial assumption that Thomas is just worried about his family is shot down after the number of times Marilyn and George keep reassuring him that he will reunite with them once they get out of the state. It isn’t just that, Cry surmises. There’s something more.

Cry has a feeling that whatever it is that Thomas is thinking about, he does not want to share them when Marilyn and George are around.

Which is why he asks him one night when their group squat at an abandoned house and he knows that Marilyn and George are downstairs, counting their remaining supplies and therefore, cannot hear them.

“You can tell me, man,” Cry coaxes again, gently this time. He is willing to be patient for Thomas because he and Thomas are so alike, their ages, the similarity of their family members, their previous lives (alright, not really. Cry spends most of his ‘days’ from the late night to the early morning playing videogames and making videos) and he wants to help him out, help relieve some of the thoughts that are haunting his mind.

Thomas finally speaks. “I dunno,” he says hesitantly at first and Cry raises his eyebrows for him to continue. “It’s just… this is some crazy shit, man. I mean, _zombies_? Actual freaking zombies?”

Cry lets out a breath, laughing a little at the absurdity of it all. “Yeah I know, right?”

“And those two,” Thomas gasps. It’s obvious he is talking about the pair downstairs. “They just don’t care, don’t seem to mind. There are people eating people out there and they get over this fact and try to get out and leave the state like it’s a vacation.”

“But isn’t that kinda good?” Cry asks. “I mean – yeah, it’s fucking crazy that there are zombies running around and the world doesn’t make sense anymore but it’s good that those two out there have a plan. They know what to do.”

“ _Do_ they though?” Thomas says, scoffing weakly. His voice sounds bitter and defeated in Cry’s ears. “What happens when they reach there and the situation’s exactly the same? What then? Keep on moving to the next town, city and state and everywhere you go, it’s the same thing. People get killed, get bitten and come back. It might not get better at all. There might be no way out of this hellhole. So what’s the fucking point?” he doesn’t sound angry when he says this. He sounds tired, weary, beaten. Like he’s given up.

Thomas’s words are not new to him. Cry knows it too, understands what Thomas is saying because he has been exposed to enough zombie apocalyptic stories to know that nothing good really comes out in the end. It just hadn’t occurred to him that he is living in one of those stories until now. It’s unnerving and terrifying because it makes him think about his life before this, all the good experiences and bad experiences he’d gone through, everything he was and is now and this is where it leads him to – a world where none of that matters. He understands now why Thomas pushes away Marilyn and George’s reassurances. Because whatever they do now, the future will remain a bleak one. Either they die at the hands of the undead or continue the struggle of finding ways to survive. It’s a simple two-way choice and there is no third option.

Cry does not want to die.

“We keep going,” he says firmly to Thomas because he refuses to follow the dark path that the latter’s mind has gone to. “It’s still early days. We keep going and if we get lucky, we’ll see our families again. Don’t be like that. Don’t give up hope. We’ll get through this together.” He then adds with a cocky assurance and a playful punch on Thomas’s shoulder that his knowledge of zombie apocalyptic videogames will help them deal with what’s happening now.

Thomas almost smiles after his rambling and his pathetic attempt at cheering him up. “‘Cry’, eh?” he hums thoughtfully but his expression still looks a little sad. “What was your name before that?”

 

On a cool, misty morning a few days later, Cry sees Thomas step off the edge of a steep drop that plunges twenty feet down into a concrete ditch, right in front of Marilyn and George. They hear his body hit the ground at the bottom. With a gasp, his baseball bat drops from his hand and his feet carry him to the edge where he sees Thomas lying sprawled on his side, his neck bent at an unnatural angle. Waves of shock and horror run through him, the image of Thomas’s body disappearing over the side replaying in his mind on loop like a tape recorder.

“Oh my god!” moans George.

“Is he okay? He’s not moving!” Marilyn whimpers.

“Thomas, no,” Cry whispers. Despite their reassurances, Thomas continued to remain melancholic and unfocused throughout their journey. Cry never suspected his misery to be unbearable enough to result into this, that Thomas would choose death over the possibility of an uncertain future.

After a few minutes of silence and staring, George says, “We have to keep moving.”

For once, anger flares in Cry’s chest. “What about Thomas?” he says sharply, turning to the two people. “We can’t just leave him lying there.”

“There’s nothing to do,” George shoots back helplessly. “It’s looks like he’s broken his neck. He’s sure as hell as dead.”

“We can’t leave him lying there,” says Cry again because how can they? There are a set of stairs leading down to the ditch about a hundred paces away. They can still reach him. “He was our friend. He needed help. I tried to help him, hear him out, but you two…” this time he fixes his accusative glare onto Marilyn, who seems helpless and feeble as George is. “You two didn’t.”

There is silence once again and the cheerful charm Marilyn and George always used to exude is absent now, replaced by twin expressions of guilt. Now, they just look like a couple of lost children.

“What do you think we should do, Cry?” Marilyn asks, sounding subdued. It’s a little strange to have people much older than him look to him for answers but he enjoys the feeling of authority that he gets while he can. He relaxes a little.

“We should bury him,” he says importantly because it’s the right thing to do. It shows we’re still human, he justifies to himself. That we recognise the value of life, the sadness of parting, we know how to respect the dead. We’re still human in this crazy, inhuman world. He motions towards the flight of steps. “We can get down using those.”

George hesitates for a bit, turning his head to scan the road they are on. There is nobody around except for the trees, the grass and the wind. The sun is coming up, already clearing away the early morning fog. It is going to be a hot day.

“I think one of us needs to keep a lookout while we bring Thomas up,” George suggests. “We might run into some company if we continue to stay put here. Why don’t Cry and I go down to get him while you, Marilyn–”

“No, no, I’m comin’ down with you,” Marilyn suddenly interrupts to their surprise. She seems to have collected some of her composure. “I feel damn guilty about Thomas. We both didn’t notice just how bad all this is affectin’ him. Why don’t Cry stay up here and we go down?”

He watches as George and Marilyn carefully make their way down the concrete steps leading into the large ditch. He contemplates on Thomas’s suicide, hardly believing it had happened, mulls over Thomas’s words – _“So what’s the fucking point?”_ – and wonders whether he would go down that road one day, when he is travelling halfway across America on his own, leaving a trail of dead zombies in his wake and realises that this will never end and what’s the point anymore, what’s the point of fucking living if what lies before him is another trail of zombies to cut through–?

But he sees Marilyn and George down there, walking towards Thomas’s body and wonders how long they have been at it, travelling together and seeing the chaos unfold in front of them. How many times have they seen someone they recognise pulled down and mauled by zombies? How often have they thought about their families? How strong was their hope in finding them, in believing that things will get better? 

Somehow he thinks about his sister and niece and his cat and his family at home and his friends and his fans (his _fans_ – the people he does not even know who thank him for posting videos and for making them happy and entertained and he loves that he’s doing good things in the world) and imagines them thinking about him too, hoping and praying that he is out there and _surviving_ so that one day he will soon be found and saved. The very thought warms his heart, burns away the creeping dark whispers that have infected Thomas and taken him away. There is no way in hell that Cry will be their next victim.

Somehow, his musings lead his gaze to linger onto Thomas’s broken body and he realises with a frown that there is no blood staining the concrete ground anywhere. Thomas died when his neck snapped in half. His head didn’t break open, hence no blood. Which means–

His stomach lurches unpleasantly. He thinks he sees Thomas’s limp arm move.

“George! Marilyn-!” he calls down in alarm. Oh my god, oh my god, he thinks. Why am I so stupid? Why didn’t I notice this in the first place? I just told them to go down there. There’s nowhere to run if– 

But by the time George and Marilyn turn their heads to look up at him, half of Thomas’s body rises from the ground and an arm darts out at lightning speed to grab the back of Marilyn’s jacket.

Marilyn screams.

George lets out a surprised shout, “What the _fuck_ –?”

Thomas – no, not Thomas. He’s no longer Thomas. _It’s_ one of them now – sinks its teeth onto Marilyn’s leg. Dark blood spurts into the air.

Cry yells, “ _No_!” and his voice echoes loudly around the concrete valley of the ditch and he stands there stupidly helpless, his baseball bat clutched tightly in his hand. He wants to get down there now and help them out, wants to rip the zombie off of Marilyn and drag George up the stairs with him and why the hell is he not moving why is he frozen on the spot and just _staring_ down at them oh god that thing keeps burrowing its teeth deeper into Marilyn’s leg he can almost see bone and she is still screaming bloody murder and George is fucking freaking out why isn’t he using his gun oh god why is there so much blood and guts on the ground it’s pooling around them what should he do what should he _do_?

The sound of heavy, shuffling footsteps behind him startles him out of his panicked thoughts and when he turns around, he almost topples over the edge of the drop at the sight of at least half a dozen undead creatures staggering towards him, attracted by the noise coming from the ditch. Seeing this new danger so close to him, his mind suddenly becomes clear as water and he is presented with two choices that could mean life or death to him. It is like he is playing _The Walking Dead_ again and he has to decide what to do within a fixed time limit.

Only his two choices are as follows: Go down the ditch and help George – or escape and leave him and Marilyn there for dead.

It takes only half a second for Cry to make a decision because he does not have enough time to contemplate on the possible repercussions of each choice. The zombie nearest to him stumbles and its pale, rotten hand which is missing two fingers reaches out, almost touching him. 

Cry bolts from the spot.

Guilt rips through him the further away he runs from that place and he thinks, it was _his_ idea that they should go to the bottom of the ditch to retrieve Thomas’s body. It was his fault he didn’t realise the danger of doing so. It was his fault that he got two people _killed_. 

Marilyn and George’s screams continue to resonate from a distance. Cry imagines them cursing his name and wants to crack his head open.

 

The first time Cry kills a zombie, he lets his anger and guilt for leading George and Marilyn to their deaths become his power. He lets the hatred for these undead creatures, his anger at the unfair world he lives in to fuel the adrenaline running through his veins. He has long abandoned the baseball bat, which lays bent and crooked after many blows, and arms himself with a shovel propped against a fence nearby. He finds it to be much heavier than the bat but far sturdier. 

He batters the zombie on the head again and again – he sees that it used to be a blonde woman and he can still see her pretty seashell-shaped earrings – until part of its skull crumples inwards and Cry brings the blade’s shovel down onto its neck, plants his foot onto the blade’s footrest and stamps on it _hard_ until there is a satisfying _crunch_ as head and neck separate. By the time he stands up and stares down at the gory mess he’d made, he realises there is blood on his wrists, on his face, in his hair, on his glasses.

 _I can get used to this_ , he decides, wiping his glasses clean with his trembling hands. _It’s just like in the videogames. I think I can learn to handle this. I have to move forward and not look back and grieve over my mistakes_.

He doesn’t know how long time has passed since he ran away from that ditch. He only knows he spent hours thinking extensively about what he had done, what he should have done and the thoughts circle around his head, stopping him from falling asleep. It is only then when he wakes up and is pounced on by a zombie that he snaps and resorts to violence. He feels more composed now that he has disposed the creature with his shovel. He tells himself that he can get back on track on his own, that he will stay in control, that he has to keep his emotions in check. The last thing he wants now is to lose what little sense he has left.

When he shoulders his backpack and picks up the shovel again, he turns and notices a dog watching him.

“Oh!” Cry blurts out in surprise. His voice sounds loud in the still, silent air and it startles the dog, making it retreat a few steps. It is a skinny dog with a dirty white coat and a wet, black nose. Cry can see it has been living rough on the streets. He’s surprised there are living animals still lingering around even when the place is crawling with the undead.

“No, no,” he says softly, approaching it. “Don’t be scared.” Poor dog, did its owner leave it here to die?

The closer he gets to it, the further away the dog retreats until finally, it turns tail and runs off. Cry watches it go with a heavy heart.

“There was a dog,” he finds himself saying. He doesn’t know who he’s addressing but he just feels like pointing it out. “A dog running around in this zombie world. Now that’s one lucky dog.”

He continues his path forward. By now, Cry has learned to move quickly, silently and inconspicuously, to avoid nearing objects which can conceal hidden zombies, to look and listen carefully for signs of their presence. He also avoids living people now. Once he spots a group of travellers in the distance who are going his direction and he forces himself to change course so that they would not meet later on. 

He freezes when he thinks he hears a sound behind him and he grips the shovel in his hands and tentatively turns around, expecting to see a zombie. His eyes land on the dirty white dog from earlier on. It is standing a few feet away from him.

“Oh hello,” Cry greets, making sure his voice comes out soft and inviting. “Are you following me?”

The dog does not reply but continues to watch him. It does not seem wary or suspicious. It may just be curious of him because he is the first living human it comes across after how many weeks. After making sure the coast is clear, Cry crouches and extends his hand, “Come here. I won’t hurt you.”

The dog does not move. After some more coaxing and to no avail, Cry gets up to approach it only to have the dog run away from him again. He stares after it in disbelief as it disappears with a flash of its white tail behind a tree.  
He turns, picking up the shovel again and continues on his way.

About an hour later, he turns around and sees the dog trailing after him, separated by a few feet.

“Why are you following me?” Cry asks it in mock-frustration. “What’s the point of trying to travel with me if we can’t even do simple communication? And how does communication look like? You let me pet you of course! We can build a relationship based on trust this way. If you just follow me around like this, it’s going to look weird and stalker-ish. I’m going to be looking over my shoulder and thinking there’s a fucking zombie behind me when it turns out to be you all along. Don’t run away every time I come near you, okay? Are we okay with this?” he takes an experimental step forward and stops when the dog backs away from him.

“No then, huh?” he mutters. “Aw, come on. What’s the worst thing I can do to you? No wait, don’t answer that, not that you could because you’re a dog. Just that I need to know your intentions for following me. Are you tailing me for food, to steal my food supplies? Sorry but I don’t tolerate stealing. I am willing to share food but we have to be friends. We need to _communicate_.” This is stupid, he thinks. Because the dog is staring at him like he’s the stupid one. Cry huffs and lowers the backpack from his shoulder and sets it on the ground. He fishes out a packet of beef jerky that he nicked from someone’s fridge and tosses a strip towards the dog. It catches the jerky with its mouth before it even hits the ground and hungrily devours it.

“Ohoho _wow_ ,” Cry laughs, impressed by what he sees. “You’re a great catcher!” he praises and proceeds to toss the rest of the strips of beef jerky towards the dog and it catches each and every one perfectly. Once Cry is done, he gets up and leaves – and the dog follows him from behind.

“Oh no, no,” Cry says, stopping and waving a disapproving finger at the dog. “I’ve got no more food,” he lies. “I may be impressed by that show you did earlier but if this is what you’re following me around for, then you should just scram – _shoo_. Leave me alone.”

The dog just stares blankly at him. He slumps his shoulders in defeat.

“Goddamn it,” he mutters, and turns back to resume walking.

The dog continues to follow him from behind.

 

Time has passed – Cry estimates about two days – since their meeting. Soon enough, he and his strange animal companion begin to settle into an odd arrangement. Although the dog continues to shy away from him whenever he makes an effort to move closer to it, it nonetheless continues to keep him company in his travels, like a stubborn ghost who trails after him during day and lingers around while he sleeps. It happily accepts any of the food Cry decides to share with it and he feels content just watching the dog catch any food item he tosses towards it cleanly in the mouth.

Cry doesn’t know the dog’s name. He wants to call it Hewie like the white Shepherd from _Haunting Ground_ but somehow the name never sticks. He finds himself berating the dog most of the time, particularly at the simple commands he gives it because the dog doesn’t react to them at all. He also finds himself addressing it simply as “Dog.”

“Dog, were you really someone’s pet?” he asks one time while they walk across a bridge full of abandoned cars. He is careful to keep his voice low and his hearing sharp. “When I tell you to sit, you sit down. When I tell you to roll over, you roll over. When I say speak, you speak – or bark or whatever, like make some sort of noise. If we’re supposed to travel together, we’ve got to start working together. When I mean by working, we got to have each other’s backs. If you do good, I will shower you with love and beef jerky. If there is a zombie in front of us and I give the signal, you charge at it and take it down and you get more love and food. Just like Hewie. But no, no. You don’t do nothing but follow me around. Come on, Dog – we really need to learn how to communicate. Or something.”

The dog continues to remain silent, treading behind him like a shadow.

Eventually, Cry realises it is not too bad to have an animal companion like this, even though the dog never makes a sound at him or comes near him or follows his commands. For one thing, the dog certainly does make a good listener. Cry can praise or berate or cuss or complain at it for as long as he wants and, just as long as he continues to maintain their distance, it seems to stay and listen to whatever it is he has to say. 

One night, they camp out in someone’s tool shed and Cry tells the dog about his life before all this, spills to it his secrets, recalls his best and worst memories and almost wishes he hadn’t. Talking extensively about his past life brings with it a terrible, overwhelming feeling of sadness which grips him by the throat and he wants to break down from the weight of it. He is stopped from doing so when he hears a low-pitched whine coming from the dog, who is sitting still on its haunches. It is the first sound he hears from the animal and he stares at it in surprise. Although they are always separated by a few feet, the dog’s stare right now seems different, almost reassuring, and the quiet whine that has rumbled out of it is the first message it sends to Cry, that it understands how he feels, that he should not be sad right now because he isn’t alone anymore. 

Cry desperately wants to hug it, to wrap its arms around its skinny body, to put his face into its dirty white coat but he knows that if he makes a move, the dog will flee. Instead, he pulls out the remaining half of a stale croissant and tosses it and the dog catches it perfectly in its mouth like a pro.

“Good Dog,” he praises, watching it eat.

The next morning, while scavenging the tool shed for anything useful, he finds a revolver concealed behind a shelf full of broken jars. He examines it in his hand, fascinated by the look and feel of it, and checks its cylinder. About half of its cartridges have been used. 

“Perfect,” he mutters, checking around the area for more ammunition but finds none. He pockets it along with a box of matches and then slips a lock pick set he finds in a toolbox into his backpack before leaving the shed quickly. The dog follows behind him as usual.

About an hour later, they run into trouble. Two zombies have heard them coming and begin staggering towards them, limbs swaying, jaws hanging open. They look like a mother and father and they must have died in the first week because their skin is already decomposing. There is a hole torn in the man’s cheek, revealing to them the inner workings of its mouth and jaw. Dried blood cakes the entire front of the woman’s dress and her arm is swinging crookedly by her side.

They haven’t come across any zombies since Cry’s first kill. Because of this, Cry wants to try using the revolver tucked into the waistband of his trousers but the need to preserve cartridges prevents him from doing so. He balances the shovel in his hands instead, ready to strike when the undead couple come close.

“Dog,” he says. “Brace yourself.” He peers over his shoulder and finds nobody there. The dog had bolted from the scene, leaving him on his own.

“Damn it, Dog!” Cry whines – and cries out in terror when he feels something grab him by the leg. 

It is a little girl – a little zombie girl no doubt the child of the couple coming closer towards him, and it had crawled and sneaked up on him while he wasn’t looking and grabbed hold of his foot. Cry desperately tries to kick it off but its grip on him is strong. The child-thing is horrible to look at. One of its eyeballs are missing and its little legs were broken in two, jutted in different angles. A shuddering, clicking sound is coming from its throat as it continues to hold onto him. Cry swings his shovel hard to push it off. The first swing smashes its nose, the second kills it instantly. By the time Cry pries his foot out of those rotten little fingers, the undead couple descend on him.

Cry yells and thrashes, tries to push them away, swings his shovel to the nearest zombie he can reach. He is panicking now, moving on pure fear and terror, lashing and beating as he tries to push them off of him. It’s difficult, their combined weight is heavy. He is scared he’ll lose his balance and fall to the ground, expects to feel a set of hungry teeth rip through his skin and flesh. He yells again, louder, and swings his shovel once more with all his might.

It hits the woman on the side of the face and throws it off of him and he continues swinging until he hits the male zombie too. But he _tilts_ , his balance lost following the swing’s momentum, his leg crumples and he falls to the grass. The shovel slips out of his grasp.

The male zombie attacks, hands aiming for his throat.

He has just enough sense to pull the revolver from his trousers, pull the hammer back and shoot the zombie right between its dead eyes.

Its face explodes. A mass of guts and brain spatter onto him. Cry flinches at the gunshot’s loud noise. His ears ring. His heart pounds hard in his chest.

The unmistakable bark of a dog. Dog! He thinks. 

Cry kicks the zombie’s body away from him and quickly scrambles up to his feet. A few metres away, the gunshot has attracted the attention of the female zombie. It is trying to stagger towards him but is held back by Dog, whose jaws are clamped onto its ankle and who is trying to pull it away from him.

“Dog!” Cry exclaims, surprised and moved by the animal’s loyal gesture. Dog is trying to protect him, Dog really does care, Dog is trying to protect him right now. He feels warm, protected, loved.

 _We’re beginning to communicate_ , he thinks.

He needs to help Dog in return and quick. Jumping over the bodies of the two dead zombies, Cry goes to retrieve his shovel before a high-pitched, pained whine fills the air. He turns around and screams when he sees that the female zombie has turned against its attacker and has sunk its teeth into Dog’s back, ripping through the dirty white fur, into flesh and blood.

“Nooooooo! Nooo, no, no, noooooo!” Cry howls, grabbing the shovel and charging towards it. “Stop it!” he screams, swinging the shovel down onto its head. “Stop it, you fucking– stop it, stop eating him – stop, stop, get off of him, get the fuck off of him, you fucking piece of _shit_. No, noooo!” One more swing and it detaches itself from Dog and Cry yells as he brings his shovel down and _stabs_ the blade into the middle of its face, feels bones crunching as it smashes into a pulp.

The shovel clatters to the ground. Suddenly, he feels exhausted.

“Dog, _no_ ,” his voice hurts, no his throat hurts, he can barely breathe, his eyes hurt, they sting as he sees Dog lying, dying there. Oh god, there is blood everywhere and Dog’s insides are spilling out onto the grass and _she’s_ still alive yes Dog is a ‘she’ because Cry’s close enough to see it now and she’s breathing so hollowly it hurts just to look at her and she’s looking at him like she’s sorry she can’t be with him from now on and just why is this happening this is so unfair they were starting to get along so fucking well–

Cry gives a dry sob, “Dog, _no_.” It is the only thing he is capable of saying. He does not know what he can do, there seems to be no way to save her. He can’t bandage an open wound like that. He feels helpless again and this is worse than when he left Marilyn and George for dead in that ditch a hundred years ago. What can he do? What _is_ there to do?

Dog whines again in pain. Cry brings up a hesitant hand – god, his hand is fucking _shaking_ – and expects Dog to flinch as he leans closer to her. She doesn’t move as he approaches. Soon, his fingers touch coarse, matted fur. Her ears feel soft to the touch. She is trembling too, he can feel her warmth diminishing, growing cold. When he strokes her muzzle gently, Dog tilts her head a little and nuzzles into his palm.

Cry breaks down in tears.

He has never cried so hard like this before. He might have had done so in the past, in a life he used to know but that life now feels like a dream he cannot go back to. He cradles Dog’s head in his hands and cries into her fur, apologises into her ear, mumbles nonsensical things that mean nothing. When he feels Dog spasm in his arms, he pulls back to see her gaze. She is in terrible pain, he can feel it too and he doesn’t want her to die slowly like this. She is looking at him expectantly. He thinks he knows what she wants him to do.

The revolver feels ten times heavier now as he retrieves it and comes back to her. His whole body is shaking, his hands are shaking as he holds it up. _I can’t do this_ , he thinks. His eyes are stinging again, his vision keeps blurring from the tears. _I have to do this but I can’t_.

Dog has no strength to lift her head but she is still watching him, waiting for him. Cry presses the barrel of the revolver onto the middle of her head. He hesitates for a long time. Dog whines in pain once more. A tear trickles down Cry’s wet cheek. His finger is tense on the trigger. Finally, he closes his eyes and manages to say, “Goodbye.”

 _And thank you_.

He pulls the trigger and Dog isn’t the only one who dies that afternoon.

 

**_Now_ **

In the abandoned gas station where he passes a blue Ford Fiesta parked outside, he finds a zombie blocking the back door leading to the storeroom where he plans to scavenge for supplies. He takes a minute to decide what to do before he steps out and silently charges forward, his grip on his shovel tightening, the blade raised into the air. His quick footfalls land on the wooden floor panels, making them creak.

There is a loud _clang_ as he forcefully swings the shovel across the zombie’s head. His movements are precise, timed, natural – coming from many days of wielding the tool as a weapon. He doesn’t flinch at the sight of the zombie’s head where its side and ear are dented in from the blow. He doesn’t feel horrified or disgusted as it lays there on the floor after being knocked off its feet. He stamps his foot onto its chest and doesn’t hesitate as he stabs the shovel blade onto the middle of its face with enough force to split it. It’s his signature move now. Blood coats the walls, his shovel, his hands. He steps back and exhales, relaxes.

And _jumps_ when the doorknob of the storeroom rattles before it flies open and something charges out of the storeroom with a yell. Cry steps back and automatically raises his shovel to swing it but stops because the other person halts too, his yell dying in his throat.

It’s a man. The first living man he comes across for so many days. He is brandishing a battered, dusty broom in one hand while holding a metal bucket in the other. He is tall and skinny and his face is hidden behind shaggy blonde hair and a full goatee which is not bushy enough to conceal his bright blue eyes.

For a long time, they stare at each other in disbelief. Until the shaggy man opens his mouth and nervously says in a voice and in words that are entirely all too familiar:

“Heheh… uh, how’s it goin’, bro?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I do know Cry's real name. Which is why I purposely avoided mentioning it in this story.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and comments! I hope you might continue sticking around for a bit. Come and enjoy some (lighthearted) Pewdiepie for now.

**02.**

_**Three weeks ago** _

Apprehension, like panic, tends to spread like wildfire among big crowds of people. It isn’t strong enough to compel them into action, but it does unconsciously draw them into small huddles, as if they are bracing themselves for the impact of an oncoming hurricane. Right now, whispers are being excitedly passed on from one person to another with such speed that it reaches other unsuspecting ears, affecting them with the same feeling too.

“Have you heard the news?”

“…Terrible riot going on at some college…”

“…People seem to be attacking each other…”

“Don’t worry. The police will sort it out…”

“…I better call my oldest daughter. She goes to college two states over so I should tell her to be careful…”

“Damn, I’ll feel much better once I get on a plane back home…”

Felix doesn’t like apprehension but he feels it right now even though he is sitting far away from the crowds, away from television screens broadcasting the latest news report about the riot. He doesn’t know what kind of riot it is and it’s uncertain when it started because the details are a little blurry. What he does gather from the snippets of conversation he overhears from other people is that it sounds serious.

Right now, he has four more hours to wait until the next available flight back to Europe. He has long since thrown his first flight ticket into a bin somewhere because he’d forgotten the departure time of his plane and only arrived at the airport a minute after the boarding gate closed. About two hours later, he is still here now, tucked in a corner of the airport waiting area near the travelators, trying to appear inconspicuous in case random people happen to recognise him as the Youtube star, Pewdiepie.

He is just staring at the nearest flight board which presents the flight times of the day when the Tannoy system ding-dongs and a woman’s voice comes through the speakers, “Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that all domestic and international flights are delayed until further notice.”

Simultaneously, all the details on every flight board or television screen change their various statuses to “DELAYED”.

Cries of outrage erupt from the passengers around him. One man actually tosses his half-eaten burger onto the floor in anger.

By then, Felix has had enough of waiting at this airport, waiting in this uneasy atmosphere that everyone is feeling thanks to the reports of the ongoing riot. He knows it will get worse if he stays here any longer especially when the passengers around him are about to fly into a rage regarding their delayed flights. 

So he leaves the airport with his bags and ducks into a taxi. Ten minutes later, he steps into a hotel nearby and checks himself in. The news channel is the first thing he sees when he switches on the TV and this time he witnesses exactly what people have been whispering about at the airport. At some university college located at some state whose name he doesn’t catch, there are reports of a disturbance which seems to originate in the college’s Biology Department and whatever it is that’s happened has spread among many college students, turning them “hysterical” and “violent”. In a few hours, the hysteria then hit the students and staff members of several departments, leading to a riot which continues to ripple through the rest of the college campus.

The hotel phone rings, the noise cutting through the newscaster’s voice, and he absent-mindedly picks it up, “Hello?”

“Gene, is that you?” says a man’s voice at the other end.

“Er, no,” Felix answers.

“What–? Oh, seriously? He left already?” The voice harrumphs. “Sorry, I’m from the room next door. My friend was staying in your room. He must’ve checked out and didn’t tell me.”

“It’s cool, man,” is his reply and before he can hang up, the man says, “Wait, are you watching the news right now?” He must have heard the sound of the TV through the phone line.

“Yeah?” 

“About the riot?” Felix thinks he hears something in the man’s voice. It’s not the same apprehension that the people at the airport are feeling, it’s something else. Like dread. Like fear.

When he confirms, the line goes silent for a while and then the man says, “Take my advice, man. You should get out of this city while you can. Something big and bad is about to happen and it’s coming from that riot.”

“I was waiting for my flight to Europe,” Felix explains. He does not know why he is telling a stranger this but the urgency in the other’s tone compels him to speak. “But all the flights in the airport got delayed for some reason.”

“It’s because of the riot,” the man supplies. “The news say they’ve got the situation under control but it’s not true. It’s not true at all. In fact, it’s getting worse by the second. Let me tell you another thing too – the riot? It’s not a riot at all. What kind of riot has people attacking and eating each other? Yep, you heard me right there.” He must have heard Felix make a noise of disbelief.

“What do you mean by people eating–” Felix begins because it sounds crazy. He shoots a glance over at the TV screen where a field reporter is interviewing an eyewitness. In the background, there are several police cars and vans parked outside the college gates which have been forcefully shut to contain the mob.

“I have a friend who goes to that college. He saw it first-hand,” the man interrupts. “He knows a guy in the Biology Department. They can’t stop it spreading, he says. That’s why he called me, told me everyone’s trying to keep this thing under control, keeping it all hush-hush to the world. That’s why the news isn’t telling you anything. The stuff on the internet sounds more plausible but we don’t know which is truth and which is rumour. All I know is that I have to tell everyone to get away while they still can.”

“What do you mean?” his heart is starting to pound fast in his chest. He licks his dry lips. “What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” the man admits. “I honestly don’t. But what I do know is that it’s not safe right now. You said you were supposed to head to Europe, right? You should find some other way to get out of the country if you can. Rent a car. Drive to Mexico or something. Just get away from here.”

The words linger in the air. Felix watches the screen where a gap between the police vehicles reveal that the college gates are filled with rioting students and staff members pushing against the bars. There is something strange and twisted about their faces. They look deathly pale and some of them look– is that _blood_? Is it just him or is that girl missing an ear? And that man – his face looks like it’s been mauled by a bear. Could it be true? That people are actually eating each other…

“…Like zombies,” Felix finds himself murmuring in disbelief. He isn’t aware that he is still on the phone with his neighbour until the man says, “That sounds about fucking right.”

 

He rents a car – a blue Ford Fiesta with a crumpled bumper, and fills it with his bags and the stuff he swipes from his hotel room like toiletries, towels and the snacks and drinks from the mini-fridge. While he drives, he tells himself to avoid the main roads and highways because once the world realises just how out of control this not-riot is going on, they will start clogging up the roads with cars in a desperate attempt to escape elsewhere. There is GPS in his car but he decides to rely on the road map atlas he finds in the glove compartment. He doesn’t know where to go but he knows that he just needs to keep driving and not stay in one place for too long. Just so until the upcoming chaos dies down.

About an hour in, he decides to try calling home or Marzia but the phone signal is bad on this minor road. When he tries calling some of his friends who live in America, he actually gets through when Ken picks up. 

“Hel- _lo_?” Ken sing-songs from the other end.

“He-hey Ken!” he greets and suddenly, the call disconnects and all he hears next is the sound of the dial tone. At first, he thinks that Ken is fucking with him but when he tries calling again, it doesn’t go through. After three more attempts, he gives up. Stupid phone signal, he thinks, shaking his phone indignantly. He accidentally swipes his thumb over the screen and his Text Message application pops up, showing him the last message he sent a few hours ago, saying that he was on the way to the airport to catch his flight back to Sweden. With a sigh, he tosses the device onto the passenger seat and turns on the radio.

 

Several hours later, he devises a plan. If one airport is closed, he will try another one just so he can board any available plane that will take him out of the country. He also realises that he is terrible at reading road maps and the GPS in his car isn’t helping much either. The device keeps directing him to main roads and highways and whenever he spots ones which are slowly piling up with queuing vehicles, he quickly finds an exit or a U-turn to escape going into a congested road.

Unfortunately, repeatedly diverting his route whenever he spots a traffic jam scrambles his sense of direction and he isn’t even sure where the hell he is or whether he’s left the state. He ends up driving around in circles and once he stops at a gas station, he has trouble understanding the cashier’s words because of his accent when he pays for fuel and a paper bag full of supplies.

The news he listens to on the radio tells him of the (not-)riot’s progress. Although the hysteria has broken out of the college and has spread into the town, the authorities _assure_ that the situation is under control and that people should not be worried. This assurance doesn’t remain long once late evening arrives. That is when real chaos breaks out and panic spreads among the people. There are announcements of the possibility of evacuation, of stocking up supplies, of staying indoors to be safe, of phone lines and the internet connection breaking down. When Felix turns on the headlights the moment it becomes too dark to see, he notices cars overtaking and roaring past him, all heading down towards the highway, to anywhere that’s far enough from the pandemonium.

Anxiety builds and looms over his mind. He thinks, this has nothing to do with me. I don’t even live here so I shouldn’t even be part of whatever the fuck’s going on. All I want right now is to go home. How the fuck do I do that if I can’t even find a fucking airport around here? You, Map, and you, stupid GPS, I am disappointed in you both. You had one job. One _job_. And you fucked up. Both of you. Right now, I’m freaking lost and I’ve been driving around in circles for how many hours and everywhere I look, there are lots of cars around and if there’s a traffic jam, we’d know for sure that in the other direction, that’s where all the crazy shit is going on, am I right, huh, Map? 

“Of course, Pewdie. You’re the genius.”

“Exactly,” he agrees and suddenly realises that he has been speaking aloud in the car and that he had just given the road map which he’d tossed carelessly onto the dashboard a voice.

“Huh,” he says because he doesn’t usually become Pewdiepie when he’s alone on his own. A few minutes later, he begins to berate the GPS again for giving him unwanted directions that lead him nowhere. The GPS apologises to him for its irrational behaviour and justifies its actions by saying it had only done so because it wants take him to an isolated place so that they can be alone together.

 

It is only one afternoon a few days later while driving down a dusty road that he sees his first zombie.

Of course, at that time he doesn’t know it is a zombie. From the back, it looks like a backpacking girl walking on the side of the road. She looks so alone in this vast, empty place that he can’t help but slow down the car and see whether she wants a ride.

“Er, hi there,” he greets when he lowers the window to speak to her. “Do you need a…?”

When she turns her head to look at him, he sees that her face is albino white, her eyes are bloodshot and her lips are gone, the skin eaten away revealing only gums and teeth. 

“Holy fucking hell-!” he actually _jumps_ in his seat and slams his foot onto the accelerator and zooms off down the road, far away from the girl. “Holy fucking hell, GPS. What the hell was that? Did you see her face? She had no–” he gulps, trying to calm himself down. “She had no _mouth_. That’s disgusting. She can’t be… she can’t be dead, right? Or undead? She’s a fucking zombie, right? Is this actually happening?”

“It’s totally happening, Pewdie,” Map answers from the backseat.

“I am _not_ fucking talking to you,” Pewdie snaps. “Remember when GPS’s batteries ran out and I had to look into your pages for directions? You said I should use this road but the problem is that I couldn’t _find_ it anywhere and ended up driving past the same McDonald’s Drive-Thru three times.”

“It isn’t _my_ fault that you’re bad at directions,” Map grumbles.

“Just shut up, Map,” he mutters in reply and he knows it’s stupid that he’s talking to inanimate objects like this and giving them voices like he does in the _Amnesia_ games but it helps prevent the interior of the car from becoming too quiet. Some time ago, the radio stations that broadcasted the news had buzzed into dead silence and he does not know what is happening in the world right now. There is no way to contact anyone by phone or go online and every place he stops by seems abandoned. The backpacking girl – no, _zombie_ is the first person he comes across on the road for many days.

Whatever the situation, he knows now that there is no way he can go to an airport. If a zombie apocalypse is on them, chances are that places with big crowds will become hit with the uprising fast, including airports. There’s no way out of the country now. What he needs to do is to find ways to survive and be safe until help arrives. He needs to start thinking about stocking up gas and food and other supplies. He needs to start thinking about weapons he can use to defend himself.

“Map,” he grudgingly calls because unlike GPS, who spends most of its time flirting with him, Map actually gives him good ideas. “We need a new plan.”

 

A wooden oar, he decides, is a stupid weapon. So is a pitchfork.

His Ford Fiesta, which he conveniently names Bluey, is just within arm’s reach if he can just get this fucking zombie off of his pitchfork. He didn’t see it coming when he stopped by a farmhouse to scavenge for supplies. There had been a wooden oar lying around and he was just picking it up when the zombie came at him. He had been so shocked to see it that he accidentally swung it round and hit it, knocking it off its feet, feeling the oar break into pieces from the impact. The zombie was getting up on its feet, probably not pleased with getting hit like that, and there was no other option but to grab the nearest thing he could reach – a pitchfork, to fend it off.

Except the only thing he could accomplish with this tool was skewering the zombie but not killing it.

“Okay, get off,” Pewdie commands nervously, shaking the pitchfork because he wants to try stabbing it in the head to see if that option works. The zombie does not obey but continues to remain stuck in the pitchfork’s tines, hands reaching out to try and grab him. It used to be a farmer but something had eaten a chunk of his shoulder and arm. Pewdie gives the pitchfork another shake but to no avail and decides he should just drop the item and make a run for it. Bluey is calling for him, urging him to hurry up so that they can make their escape away from this place.

He gives a forceful shove and lets go of the pitchfork. He doesn’t wait to see the zombie fall back because he’s already running, diving into the car and starting the engine. His hands are shaking from the narrow escape and he clumsily backs the car up, intending to change directions, before he puts his foot on the gas and screeches when the car rams into the unsuspecting zombie head-on, snapping the handle of the pitchfork it is attached to. There is a horrible _crunch_ as the tyres run over the body and Pewdie speeds up once he hits tarmac again. 

“That was a close one,” he gasps, feeling sweat run down his forehead. His hands are still shaking as he grips the steering wheel. “That was so fucking close. I could have _died_.”

After a while, he tells Bluey, “Let’s never stop at a farmhouse ever again.”

 

Time passes and days blur into weeks as Pewdie keeps on driving. He now only stops when he needs to, when gas or food and water run out or when he decides to add another makeshift weapon into the collection he keeps in the trunk of his car. 

He rarely sees people anymore when he’s on the road apart from a convoy of trucks he spots in the distance once. What he does see is a lot of abandoned cars – and he avoids roads with these like the plague – as well as zombies scattered around the area, staggering up and down the streets with no destination. They perk up in attention when Bluey roars past them but they are too slow to catch up once Pewdie hits the gas to get as far away from them as he can. 

It is lonely on the road, even when he does continue to speak to the inanimate objects in his car. His phone has long since died and he sometimes finds himself staring longingly at it when he parks the car to the side of the road to rest for a moment. He wants to call home, desperately wants to call his family, his friends, Marzia, his dog Maya; wants to know if they’re safe, whether Europe and the rest of the world are suffering from the same uprising or are luckily safe from it. He thinks he will give anything in the world just to hear their familiar voices again. 

Food is beginning to run out again, he discovers one evening when he parks the car in the most secluded spot he can find. Torchy, his flashlight, informs him he’s down to two packets of biscuits and a bottle of whisky while Map adds from the floor of the backseat that Pewdie needed to cut down from eating too much. 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Pewdie snorts. “I eat what I want, whenever I want.”

“You can’t eat once you’ve run out of food,” Map reminds him. “Think about it. Once all the food’s gone, who’s going to replace it? Remember when the world was normal and you get to buy your crisps from a convenience store and those crisps were manufactured from factories and shipped all over the country? Now think about the situation now. Zombies everywhere so they’ll be no more people growing potatoes and making crisps from factories and shipping them in trucks to all the shops just so you can buy and eat them. You’ve got to start being economical on food, Pewdie. Otherwise, you won’t last very long.”

“Look at me,” Pewdie huffs once he turns off the flashlight and lies in the backseat of the car in the darkness. The night is eerily silent outside and he does not dare make too much noise to disturb it. “I’m talking to a road map with my own voice and telling myself not to waste food. I think I’ve gone crazy.”

He finds an abandoned gas station the next day and parks his car outside the store, locking it before slipping the keys into his pocket. He enters through the front door and sees the dark interior covered in dust. Pewdie switches on his flashlight and a ball of light leaps out to land onto the shelves, which he finds are swept clean and the cash machine emptied. There is nothing worth taking here except that there is a door at the very end which probably leads to the back room. Or a storeroom. 

“What do you think, Torchy?” he asks. “Should we take a look in there?”

“I dunno,” Torchy squeaks in his hand. “Maybe we should go back.”

“You’re such a wuss, you know,” Pewdie cackles mockingly, walking closer to the door. His footsteps make the wooden floor panels creak under his weight. Just as he reaches it, he suddenly senses someone in the room with him and when he swings around to shine his flashlight onto the intruder, he startles when he finds a zombie there, the remains of its smashed nose covered in dried blood.

“Oh shit!” he swears and grapples at his belt only to realise that he was stupid enough to come in here without a weapon. The undead man is already staggering towards him, arms reaching out to grab him. 

Pewdie backs away and reaches for the doorknob of the backroom. Please be unlocked, he prays and turns it and the door gives away. He stumbles inside and slams the door shut, locking it and stepping back.

And flinches when the zombie begins banging on the door from the other side. He frantically looks around the storeroom and finds no doors or windows which provide an escape route. He is trapped in here.

“Shit, shit,” he mutters, pacing around the little storeroom. “This is all your fault, Torchy. Why didn’t you remind me to bring a weapon?”

For once, his flashlight stays silent in his hand. Pewdie gives it a forceful shake but does not toss it aside. Instead, he pockets it and begins to properly examine the room for something useful to use. The zombie continues to bang on the door outside.

“Right, what can we take in here?” he murmurs frantically. There are shelves here stacked with canned food and drinks which he picks up and quickly stashes into his bag. Once that is done, he turns his attention to finding some sort of weapon he can use to kill the zombie outside. He finds a broom and a metal bucket in a corner and picks them up.

“Broom, are you strong enough to take on that zombie outside?” Pewdie asks it and the broom shivers in his grasp. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He peers at the metal bucket in his other hand and decides it doesn’t need asking. He begins to hatch a plan.

“Alright, bros,” he tells the two items quietly. “This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to charge through the door and surprise that sonuvabitch. Bucket, you attack its face, especially its mouth and make sure you cover it so that it can’t try to eat me. Broom, you stab it down to the ground. We might not kill this zombie but at least it’ll buy me some time to escape. Are you ready?” he thinks he hears a loud _clang_ outside the storeroom but he’s too preoccupied with preparing himself for the attack. His hands are shaking again and he takes a couple of deep breaths to steady his nerves. Outside, something goes _crunch_ in an unpleasant way.

_Here we go_ , Pewdie thinks, straightening up and wrapping his hand on the doorknob. He turns it and it unlocks, and he charges through it with a battle cry.

And stops when he finds no zombie on the other side of the door. There is someone there though, a living person, and he is covered in blood and guts and holding up a bloody shovel. They stare at each other in disbelief for a long time and Pewdie thinks he needs to say something to break this awkward silence between them.

“Heheh… uh, how’s it goin’, bro?” is the first thing he says to the first living person he comes across after three weeks of surviving the zombie apocalypse on his own.

 

The last person that Cry expects to come across in this fucked up reality is _this_ guy. 

Which is why he tenses when the other man cautiously approaches him, lowering his broom and bucket, and peers at him in the dim light. He sees the spark of recognition light up in his eyes.

“You are fucking kidding me,” comes the man’s response. His voice is full of disbelief as he drops the items he holds in his hands onto the floor. “Tell me you are fucking kidding me and this is some fucked up dream induced by the fear I had because I was going to die at the hands of a zombie.” He turns his head and jumps back at the sight of bloody zombie remains by his feet. “Holy fucking – what the hell? Did you kill it?” he asks, pointing and looking uneasy.

“Of course I killed it,” Cry cannot help but answer haughtily as he lowers his shovel once he’s sure the danger has passed. He pauses, and then asks, “Are you real?”

“As real as I’ll ever be,” a brilliant grin breaks out of that shaggy goatee, unkempt after three weeks of no shaving. It’s shocking to see such a sincere smile after so many days of solitude and darkness. Then, the grin fades a little, “Do you not remember me?”

_Remember September_? A memory flickers through Cry’s mind for a second before it disappears. Of course he remembers who it is. He just cannot _believe_ it.

“Pewds–” he begins but is suddenly cut short when he feels a long arm wrap around his shoulders and he is pulled into an awkward hug. The warmth of another body pressing against his is even more shocking than seeing the smile, and he stands stiffly still in the embrace, not daring to breathe. He wants to shy away from the contact but he can’t.

“Cry!” Pewdie exclaims into his ear. His voice is loud and familiar and it’s been so, so _long_ since he’s heard a voice from his past. He doesn’t return the hug and doesn’t really need to because Pewdie quickly lets him go with a nervous laugh, “Whoops. Sorry ‘bout that. How-? Why are-?” he struggles before settling with, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Getting supplies,” Cry answers straightforwardly, but Pewdie is shaking his head.

“No, no. I mean, how are you still alive?”

Cry frowns. “What kind of question is that? I think I should be asking _you_ why the fuck you’re still in America. I thought you went home.”

“Missed my flight,” Pewdie replies sheepishly. “Then all the planes were delayed. Zombies started happening outside. So, you know, I had to get out.”

“Huh,” is Cry’s reply.

“But you’re _here_ now,” the grin is back and Cry thinks that Pewdie looks hilarious in that goatee because he resembles a hobo living on the streets. “And it’s totally great to see you again. Hey, let’s travel together. It’ll be just like _No More Room in Hell_ or whatever fucking zombie game we co-op’d together in the past. Wait, _do_ you want to travel together? Or… or you’re okay on your own…?”

“Oh!” After a pause, it occurs to Cry then what it is that Pewdie is offering him. The prospect sounds so incredibly tempting and Cry finds he’s fed up with going on this journey all on his own. It’s been so long since Thomas, since Marilyn and George, since Dog. It’s been far too long since anyone really.

“Oh?” Pewdie isn’t sure what Cry’s utterance means. The look on his face almost makes him smile.

“It means yes, of course,” Cry clarifies. “Let’s do this. Let’s travel and kill zombies together.”

“Fuck yeah,” Pewdie agrees and fishes out a set of car keys from his pocket. “I take it you haven’t properly met Bluey yet?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I enjoyed writing Pewdie's conversations with inanimate objects a lot. Also, CinnamonToastKen cameo. Finally - yes, you've just witnessed the transition of Felix into Pewdiepie in this chapter, a little different to the one with Cry in the previous one. Thanks for noticing (if you have).
> 
> Any feedback is greatly appreciated, as always.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much love to the readers who left kudos! Thank you for taking the time to romp through this tale. Hope you're ready for some zombie action. (Or get ready to keep super quiet if you want to live a little longer).

**03.**

In the next two days after their unexpected reunion, Cry spends most of his time while Pewdie drives sleeping in the passenger seat of the car, his head lolled sideways onto his shoulder, one hand clutching a Swiss army knife attached to his belt. He sleeps so soundly that he doesn’t move from his position for many hours. 

Pewdie doesn’t mind it when this happens because he secretly agrees with both Map and GPS that their newest guest undoubtedly needs the sleeping time. During the hours when Cry is awake, he becomes highly alert, shooting wary glances at anything their car passes outside. His tensed state does not disguise the fact that he looks sleep-deprived and weary. Pewdie doesn’t blame him for being this way. Cry looks like he’s been sleeping rough for a while and has probably sacrificed a lot of his time being constantly on the lookout instead of resting. So Pewdie passes the hours when Cry sleeps humming songs to himself or quietly berating GPS for its sudden interest in their new passenger.

“But Pewdie, he’s so handsome,” GPS purrs. The device stopped working weeks ago but this doesn’t stop Pewdie from talking to it once in a while.

“I thought you liked me more,” Pewdie points out in a low murmur. He doesn’t want to wake Cry and he certainly doesn’t want Cry listening in on his and GPS’s conversation. “What’s so special about him anyway?”

“It’s the glasses, Pewdie,” GPS explains. “If you hadn’t broken yours and maybe worn them once in a while, you’d still be my number one.”

“That wasn’t my fault by the way–”

“That was totally your fault,” Map interrupts from somewhere underneath Cry’s seat. “Because you _sat_ on them.”

“Would you please shut _up_ , Map,” Pewdie groans exasperatedly and stops speaking altogether when Cry stirs a little from his seat but does not move again.

Once Cry wakes up, that’s when Pewdie becomes animated, much more animated than he usually is when he’s alone with the inanimate objects in his car. One late morning, when they exchange anecdotes about the day this zombie hell crashed into their lives, Pewdie spins for Cry a dramatic tale, complete with over-the-top voices and sound effects, of his being stranded at the airport, his meeting with the mysterious caller who warns him of the upcoming danger and his escape out of the city in a rented blue Ford Fiesta. He only stops rambling on and on about his adventures when Cry interrupts him.

“So you escaped before it started going all to shit,” Cry bottom-lines it perfectly. Pewdie can see that he looks a lot better after catching up some hours of sleep. “Before the zombies broke out of that college and started spreading through cities. And then you spent all these weeks just driving around? Whatever happened to the dude who warned you about this?”

He’d forgotten about him. Pewdie barely remembers how the voice sounded like. He never did wonder who the man behind it might have been, whether he was a college student or was already working. He wished he’d asked him and thanked him when he had the chance. “Don’t know,” Pewdie answers a little ruefully. “I hope he made it out alright. He sort of saved my life after all.” He stays silent for a moment before he asks Cry brightly, “Where were _you_ when this started? How did you get out?”

“Woke up late,” Cry replies and is it him or do those words sound a bit forced? “I was at home. So I holed up in there for a while. Then I left before it got bad. Been wandering around ever since.” The words hang in the air between them and Pewdie has a strange feeling that there is more to this story than what Cry lets on and wonders why he isn’t saying anything more. 

He lets his mind go back to their reunion, remembers the shock of meeting one another, recalls seeing a blood-stained Cry standing over the remains of a zombie, a shovel in his hands. “So how many have you killed?” Pewdie asks casually. He doesn’t need to mention who it is he is talking about.

Cry shrugs nonchalantly and answers in that same offhand manner, “One or two. Maybe a few.”

“ _Really_?” Pewdie says incredulously and doesn’t believe it’s the truth. He’s picked up Cry’s shovel before, taking note of its weight and movements when he tries swinging it and finds it a heavy thing to hold and balance at the same time. You need to have had a lot of practice if you’re able to smash a zombie’s skull with one blow. “You’re kidding, right? You killed, like a _few_?”

Cry shrugs in reply – and there it is again, the sense that there is something more that’s not being said except this time it is silence that awkwardly hangs in the air instead of unfinished words. Pewdie isn’t sure what to make of it. It’s odd, he realises, that Cry seems to speak only when the need arises. It wasn’t like that in the past. They used to rant on and on about things to the point where they overlap each other’s words without even knowing it.

Or maybe Pewdie is just imagining things. He hasn’t seen Cry for a long time after all.

Either way, he doesn’t point any of this out so he says instead, “Wow Cry, you must have a talent for killing zombies.”

Cry snorts and warily eyes a lone zombie that lifts its head to stare at them as they drive past it, “Hm. Yeah, maybe I do.”

They stop for a while, parking behind a giant billboard to conceal the car from view, just so they can eat some lunch. Cry doesn’t feel comfortable with the idea of eating outside where they are exposed to the elements and possibly any wandering undead but Pewdie insists it’s safe for now, as long as they don’t stay too long in one place. “I do this all the time,” he says, hoping to sound reassuring. “You think I drive all night without any rest? I make sure the place is totally empty before I park Bluey. Besides, it’s good to get out once in a while.” 

When Cry looks unconvinced, he adds, “Don’t worry about it, Cry.”

It’s an offhand comment, one that automatically comes out of his mouth without much thinking, but he’s satisfied that the familiarity of it brings something of a smile to Cry’s face.

“Okay,” says Cry with a sigh, like he really is trying not to worry. “What’s for lunch?”

Pewdie digs into his backpack and comes out with three cans of sliced peaches. “Here,” he says and hands two of those cans to Cry. “You look like you need it.” He isn’t joking when he says it. The past three weeks have not been kind to Cry. Apart from being sleep deprived, Cry has also lost much of his weight. Pewdie guesses he’s not faring too well either even though Map accused him of using up too many of his supplies at a given time.

A few days later, Cry discovers the road map buried underneath his seat and dives into it. He doesn’t emerge until he says, “There’s some sort of lake, about a couple of miles ahead. Let’s stop there for a while and refill our water supply.”

“Isn’t there a town nearby?” Pewdie asks absent-mindedly, keeping the steering wheel steady as he takes a second to peer at the map in Cry’s lap.

“Not for another hundred miles or so,” says Cry, and Pewdie thinks it’s not too bad to have someone suggest a destination for him. It certainly beats the places that were proposed by Map and GPS (or himself) anyhow.

Pewdie steps on the gas and away Bluey goes.

 

Cry realises one thing after a few days of travelling with Pewdie – that he isn’t much of a good travelling companion. 

Although they fared off rather well during their chance encounter, when it got down to travelling in a car with the other man, Cry either sleeps for hours, awkwardly overhears Pewdie speak in two or three different voices with himself when he’s half-awake, or, if Pewdie is speaking to him, unable to produce sentences long enough to continue a conversation. 

He doesn’t understand how surviving three weeks into a zombie apocalypse can make him socially awkward with people again.

He feels a little bad about it because he should be grateful, ecstatic that he isn’t going through this shit alone anymore and that someone he knows is alive and well, but even he can see that his own demeanour is worrying Pewdie. He sees it from the way Pewdie nervously fills in any of the silences that Cry falls into after he answers questions with curt, concise words. He sees it in the way Pewdie sometimes shoots looks of concern at him when he thinks he isn’t looking. Once he even catches Pewdie speaking to what he believes is the road map lying on his lap when Cry is half-asleep.

“I don’t know, Map,” Pewdie’s voice is quiet but Cry can hear him perfectly. It’s late in the night and Pewdie decides that they should stop the car for a while before reaching their lake destination the morning after. “He’s been really quiet lately. He just seems so tense all the time. Remember when we stopped to eat? He actually jumped when a branch broke from that tree.”

“It wasn’t nice of you to laugh at him, you know,” Cry guesses this must be the voice Pewdie gives to the map. “Give the guy a break.”

“I didn’t mean to laugh,” Pewdie says apologetically. “I was surprised at just how tense he is. Wonder what happened that made him like that?”

A lot of things, Pewds, Cry says silently to himself. Things I’ve seen and felt that you didn’t go through when you spent those three weeks of hell just driving around. Things I’d done that I don’t think you’d want to know.

“Give him time,” Pewdie says as the map’s voice. “He’s gone through a lot. He’ll open up one day.”

“I hope so,” Pewdie answers. “It’s not good keeping things bottled up all the time. Might drive you crazy. Sometimes you need to spill it all out.”

“And then you start talking to road maps and flashlights,” the ‘map’ finishes for him.

“Just shut up, Map.” 

They finally reach the lake the next morning when, under Cry’s guidance, Pewdie takes a small road which zigzags through a small forest. It eventually opens up to a pebbled beach circling a large expanse of clear water. It’s secluded enough and far away from nearby towns that it hasn’t yet been hit by zombies and the sounds of nature thankfully prevents the area from becoming too eerily silent.

“Wow, this is a good spot to rest,” Pewdie praises approvingly as he gets out of the car to survey their surroundings. “Well done, Cry.”

It’s sunny and warm enough that Cry announces he’s going to wash his dirty, blood-stained clothes. When he gets out a couple of soap bars, he tosses one to Pewdie along with a new safety razor he extracts from a packet of three. 

“You look like you need it,” he points out offhandedly at the other’s blank expression. When he turns to stuff the razor packet back into his bag, he hears Pewdie let out an offended squawk. Yes, it’s definitely a _squawk_.

“What does _that_ mean? I look like I need it?” Pewdie looks scandalised, holding up both soap bar and razor in each hand. “I happen to _like_ my beard, ‘kay thanks.”

“I can barely see your face, Pewds,” Cry says and somehow it sounds a little funny when he says it out in the open. Pewdie looks even more scandalised after that comment. Cry finds himself adding, “You look like a homeless person.”

Pewdie squawks again, and it makes Cry’s lip twitch upwards into a smile. Then he dramatically flicks his blonde bangs out of his face, spins on his heel and walks off, waving dismissingly, “You’re just _jealous_.”

When he returns though, the shaggy goatee is gone and Cry can see the familiar features of his face again. He can also see the numerous nicks and cuts that Pewdie obtained from trying to shave a lot of hair off his face without the aid of a mirror. The expression he is pulling as he drags his feet closer to Cry, who has stripped down to only his underwear and is crouched over the water, rinsing soap out of his clothes, reminds him so much of a funny .gif he’d seen on Tumblr that he feels something rise up in his chest, bubbling up his throat and bursts out of his mouth before he can hold it in.

The next thing he knows, he’s _laughing_ at Pewdie’s face.

Cry has not laughed for weeks. He has forgotten how to.

He can’t stop the tickling feeling in his stomach, the bubbling in his chest, the giggling that erupts from his lips. He _can’t_ now that he’s realised he is laughing for the first time in such a long while. He can’t because Pewdie’s face changes to that of bewilderment before he, too, breaks into laughter and then they’re laughing together and they really shouldn’t be this loud because their voices are echoing around the trees but Cry can’t stop if Pewdie keeps laughing like that and now his chest hurts but in a good way and he can’t breathe wow what is air my stomach hurts–

“Cry, you need to stop,” Pewdie gasps, doubling over and clutching his own stomach. They eventually calm down and Pewdie is rubbing at his eyes. “Oh wow,” he says, still gasping for breath. “Wow, I never thought I’d hear that laugh again, you know.”

“Me either,” Cry manages to say. His cheeks hurt from the laughing and he reaches up to massage it. “Anyway, are you okay?” he asks, motioning towards the nicks on Pewdie’s face. “I’m sorry I don’t have any aftershave.”

“God, no way. Not having any of that. I don’t want to burn my face off,” says Pewdie. He makes some sort of complicated gesture at his face, pushing his hair back when it falls into his eyes, and asks, “When was the last time _you_ shaved, Cry?”

“A couple of days ago,” Cry answers. “Why?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Pewdie says with a shrug. “Maybe _you_ look like a hobo too.”

“Oho, who’s the one with the _full_ beard just ten minutes ago?”

“Don’t diss my beard, bro.”

“You don’t _have_ a beard anymore, _bro_.”

“How dare you,” Pewdie mock-sniffs. “I spent two minutes mourning for that beard.”

“Whatever,” Cry says, laughing, and he feels pretty good right now. It’s quiet and peaceful here and safe enough to stay and rest for a couple of hours without getting disturbed by zombies or other people. He feels good now that he’s bickering with Pewdie again over such a petty thing as his goatee. He feels good that something has broken through the awkward air that exists between them since their reunion. 

I can do this, he thinks. I can reconnect with my friends, even if it takes a while. We’re going to be okay.

“Are you going to wash your clothes too?” Cry decides to continue their conversation. He wants to keep talking, wants to make things better between them. He’s grateful that it’s Pewdie who makes him laugh so hard that he can’t breathe.

“I dunno,” Pewdie says, shrugging. His face breaks into a grin. It looks much more brilliant now that his face isn’t hidden behind his hair. “Oh Cry,” says Pewdie breathlessly as he flutters his eyelashes. “Are you offering to wash my clothes for me?”

“Fuck no,” Cry laughs again. He tosses Pewdie a fresh soap bar and points to the water. “Get to it, soldier.”

 

They end up spending the entire day at the lake and it’s a good thing because it gives them a chance to take a look at their stuff and discover that their combined supplies are enough to last them for up to a week. By the time they pack their things back into the car, it’s already dark. Both of them don’t dare to light a bonfire so they resort to eating their dinner in the car, curled in their seats around the glow of Pewdie’s flashlight.

It’s been a good day, Pewdie thinks as he tucks into a plastic spoonful of fruit cocktail from the can he is holding. It’s good that Cry seems a little more relaxed now that he’s rested, cleaned himself up and had enough time to shave. It’s good that they’re slowly going back to being their own selves when they talk to each other. It’s almost like slipping back into familiar clothes, like settling back into a familiar routine. Like the world around them never changed. 

“Where should we go tomorrow?” Cry asks aloud. He has Map open and is tracing roads with his finger while Pewdie helpfully picks up Torchy and shines the light onto the page. “Where do _you_ usually drive to, Pewds?” Cry says, looking expectantly at him.

“Uh,” Pewdie begins. He’s been driving around all these weeks without much of a destination. He likes to take the small, back roads instead of highways because he knows some will be congested with abandoned cars. There is also a low chance of meeting hordes of zombies along the way.

“You _do_ know that what we need right now is a plan, right?” says Cry meaningfully. “We can’t keep driving around in circles like this. We need to find some place safe.” He then turns back to Map, flipping through a couple of pages before coming to rest on a large scale illustration of North America. “I say we keep heading south. You know, stay away from the bigger, more advanced cities. There’s gotta be a safe zone somewhere.”

“A safe zone?” Pewdie says musingly, thinking back to the zombie apocalypse-related knowledge in his head. “Wait, wait. If that’s the case, then maybe there’s some sort of announcement being done for any survivors? Of where they should go? Like a safe zone? Maybe we should find some sort of transmission device. Like a radio. Or a walkie-talkie. We’ve got to reach out to someone at least. Let them know we’re still alive and we need help.”

“Yet I wonder why you hadn’t done that yet,” Pewdie hears Cry mutter. In Torchy’s glow, he can see Cry raising an eyebrow at him. “Don’t tell me you thought of that just now?” he adds.

It makes sense though, what Cry is hinting at. The moment Pewdie knows that the zombie uprising continues to get worse as days pass by, he should have thought that the first thing to do was to go find help, to get to someplace safe. Instead, he’d been stuck on the roads for weeks, driving aimlessly around without a destination. So Cry’s accusation leaves Pewdie spluttering for words and he feels his face flush in embarrassment. He silently reminds himself to scold Map for not giving him that idea in the beginning. 

“I was _busy_ ,” he supplies the pathetic excuse to Cry.

“Uh-huh,” this time the edge of Cry’s mouth rises into a smile. “You were busy doing _what_ exactly?”

“Going on a road trip, of course,” says Pewdie emphatically. “And it was lucky that I did. Otherwise, I never would’ve picked you up from that gas station.”

“Whoa, whoa. _You_ picked me up?” Now Cry is snorting in laughter. It’s good to hear him laugh again. “Who was the one trapped in a room with a zombie banging on his door?”

Pewdie sighs dramatically and leans back in the driver’s seat in defeat. “Okay, fine, _fine_. You saved me, Cry. Now let’s get back to this big plan of ours.”

The amusement on Cry’s face is the last thing he sees before Torchy suddenly flickers in his hand and dies, plunging them into total darkness.

“I guess that’s our cue to go to sleep,” Pewdie mumbles, tossing Torchy into the backseat. He knows the spare batteries are stashed in the glove compartment but he doesn’t need those now. Beside him, he hears Cry straightening up in his seat.

“I’ll keep watch,” he says quietly in the dark. “You get some rest, Pewds.”

 

Pewdie says, “It looks like there’s only a few of ‘em wandering around. I think we can take ‘em, Cry–”

“No, wait, _wait_ ,” Cry cuts in. “We can’t assume that there’s only one or two zombies in the area. We need to check every corner of the place. Make sure that we don’t get jumped when we’re creeping around.”

“But have you _seen_ how big this place is? I don’t think we have time to look around,” Pewdie points out as he gestures at the large hardware store which they have parked outside. It’s been almost a week since they’d left the secluded lake and they both agreed that it was time for a supply run. After Pewdie had pulled up at the hardware store’s parking lot, they can see a hole punched through one of the glass doors, where someone must have thrown something small through it. Beyond that, some shadowy figures float languidly past the dark entrance. It’s obvious who those figures are.

Initially, Pewdie had been uncertain of this idea because what good would they do raiding a hardware store in the first place? What could possibly be useful to take from there? 

“Are you _serious_?” Cry had said when Pewdie pointed it out while driving down an empty, dusty highway. He then gestured back towards Bluey’s trunk. “Have you seen the kind of stuff you’d tossed in there? Not exactly useful, Pewds. The crowbar and baseball bat are the exception, but a _hedge_ trimmer? _Really_? And police batons? What can we _do_ with those things?” That was when Cry proceeded to explain to him the kind of things they could take from a hardware store which would be essential for their survival – things such as rope, duct tape, fire starter equipment, a compass or some spare parts for any gears. If they were to live in the wilderness, they needed to be prepared for it. Soon, Pewdie began to see the sense in Cry’s words and eventually agreed to this plan.

Except, the problem still remained about how they could get in and out of the store without getting themselves killed.

“Listen,” Cry says, trying to sound reasonable. “If we just take a while to look carefully, whatever it is that we’ve picked up could very well be the key that can save our _lives_. Now for _that_ to work–” he shoots Pewdie a look that stops him from interrupting. “We need to recon the area. Find out how many zombies there are inside. If there are too many of them, maybe we’ll find a way to draw them elsewhere. Gather them around so that it keeps the aisles we’re looking through clear.”

“How are we going to do that?” Pewdie can’t help but whine. “I don’t suppose we walk in there and ask the security guard how many zombies there are in the store?”

“Even though the security guard is a zombie himself,” Cry adds with a half-grin, which then falls off his lips together with the noticeable slump in his shoulders. “Damn. I guess you’re right about one thing though. We have no idea how we can determine the number of zombies inside. No way to recon either. There is just no way.”

“Yeah, and we don’t have enough time to find out as well,” Pewdie mutters, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Well, whatever plan we’re doing, we’d better hurry up. Nightfall is coming. I’m totally not going in there in the dark.”

They sit quietly for a while, lost in their thoughts before Pewdie sucks in a breath to break their silence. “Let’s simply do it like this. We’ll just sneak inside,” he suggests. “We’ll be really quiet and keep out of sight. We could go in through the back door. There should be one in a big place like this.”

“A back door?” Cry blinks like he has just realised this. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Except we don’t know if there might be zombies on the other side of that door. Judging from what we can see here, the front door looks like it doesn’t have too many.”

“Should we split up then?” Pewdie says. “One of us goes through the front door and the other, the back?”

“No, no, we stick together,” Cry says firmly before he shoots him a look. “Also, Pewds, that’s a stupid idea. The whole splitting up thing. Don’t ever think that again.” A few seconds later though, he hums approvingly, “Yeah, I think we should sneak inside, like you said. There’s one thing we’ve got an advantage over when it comes to zombies after all – they can’t see or smell us. They can only hear us since they react to sound.”

“Oh,” Well, this is brand new information to him. Pewdie has never picked this fact up on his travels. Then again, he didn’t stay long enough in the company of zombies to find out about it anyway. “That just means we have to walk around these bastards super-quietly.”

“Exactly,” says Cry before he reaches between them to pick up Torchy. “It doesn’t look like there’s any electricity powering up the place. It’ll be dark inside. We’ll need these. Now, let’s grab what we need from here, go over the plan again and get started.”

They spend several minutes getting ready before they get out of the car, armed with backpacks, flashlights and weapons – Cry with his shovel, which he fixed with a makeshift strap to hang off his shoulder, and Pewdie clutching a crowbar. They make their way to the back of the store, past the mangled remains of a run-down gate. A set of heavy doors by the side of the building tell them that this is their way in. Pewdie tries the door and finds it locked.

“You got your lock pick?” He doesn’t really need to ask this because Cry has already taken the pouch out of his backpack and is crouching by the door. He unfolds the pouch on his lap and stares at the nine tool pieces inside. 

“I just realised,” Cry mumbles regretfully, looking blank. “That I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Pewdie suppresses a groan. “You’re kidding me,” Of _course_ they would not know how to operate these things. They’ve seen plenty of lock picking in action in movies and videogames but they have never touched the items in real life. Pewdie thinks hard about what he remembers about lock picking and reaches over to point at the most familiar pick and wrench from memory.

“You take these,” Pewdie begins and Cry follows his words and does so. “Okay, now do you remember playing that videogame? Can’t remember which one but you had to do some sort of lock picking thing. I don’t know if it’s realistic enough for this situation but it might give you an idea.”

“Yeah, I think I remember,” says Cry, and Pewdie sees him brightening a little as a memory returns to him. “God, can’t believe I forgot that. Feels like a million years ago.” Cry folds the pouch and puts it back in his bag. “Okay, Pewds,” he says, looking up at him. “Keep a lookout. This could take a while.”

It certainly does take a while – specifically, it involves fifteen minutes of watching Cry wriggle the tools that he inserted into the lock. Even a restless Pewdie, who stands watch and impatiently waits for results, is given a go at it without much success. Finally, just as Pewdie feels a frustrated urge to kick the double doors, there is a sharp _click_ and he turns sharply to see Cry fall back to the ground, sighing deeply in relief. He pulls off his glasses to wipe the sweat off his face. 

“It’s open,” he announces triumphantly. 

They find the other side of the door thankfully empty but the place is dark, the only light source coming from the few windows scattered here and there. It’s silent and eerie now and Pewdie doesn’t know if that is a good sign or not.

“Remember,” he hears Cry whisper very quietly beside him. “Whatever you do, do _not_ make a sound. Or we’re as good as dead. Now, turn on your flashlight and let’s go.”

They go through a door that leads outside to the actual store, and it’s a big area that mostly lies in darkness except for a single dim light source coming from beyond glass windows of an office at the other end. The white fluorescent light is buzzing with electricity as it keeps flicking on and off, eerily throwing the room into light and darkness. There are also other noises – muffled sounds of shuffling, of quiet moaning, and they know it is the undead and they are sleepily moving around the aisles, waiting for something to wake them up from their dormant state, waiting to attack something living, waiting for the time to feast.

For a minute or two, Pewdie stands there with Cry, listening to those noises, so loud they seem in the thick, eerie silence as they take in the scene before them. It’s unreal, Pewdie thinks. It’s unreal to see and hear all this, to be in this situation that’s so familiar to him from a television screen. It’s unreal to be here right now.

He feels Cry nudge him lightly, moving him into action. They shine their flashlights over the aisles, the floors, only to find them a mess. The place had been looted before, things have been knocked off their shelves, some of the display tables wiped clean. There isn’t much to scavenge but Pewdie can see that Cry looks determined to make the best of their situation. 

They work very slowly, choosing one empty aisle and Cry sifts through what’s left on the shelves or on the floor. They don’t speak while he works and Pewdie continues to keep a lookout, shining Torchy – who is thankfully silent, probably because it’s trembling with fear in his hand – here and there, keeping his ears out for any sounds of approaching footsteps. When Cry finishes, he settles next to him, gives a nod, and they quietly move on to the next aisle. 

They avoid aisles and walkways where they spot zombies either staggering down the lanes, lightly bumping into things, or just swaying blankly on the spot. Once, a zombie lifts its head towards their direction and Pewdie and Cry both freeze on the spot, not daring to breathe or move, until the creature turns away from them. 

The scavenging continues smoothly for another ten minutes and Pewdie can’t help but feel restless at how excruciatingly slow this is taking. He’s also never felt so highly tense before. The atmosphere in the store is just so thick, so silent, that any kind of sound seems amplified in their ears. Cry even stiffens when his hand accidentally knocks something thin and metallic but the sound is thankfully muffled. As seconds pass, Pewdie feels his anticipation rising and he reminds himself not to breathe too hard. 

_Don’t make a sound_ , Torchy tells him telepathically. It’s happening again. Even when his mind threatens to be overwhelmed with silence, he begins to imagine speaking to things in his head. _Cry told you not to make a sound, Pewdie. Don’t do it. Stop shuffling like that. Just wait for Cry to finish. I hope he finishes soon because I don’t think I can fucking take this anymore._

He frowns slightly. He isn’t sure if Torchy had been the one speaking that.

Unable to watch Cry any longer, Pewdie turns and begins shining Torchy on the opposite shelves which are filled with all sorts of batteries. He is suddenly hit with an idea that they would probably need a lot of these when they are on the road. He crouches onto the floor, hesitates on what to do with his crowbar, before he ties it tightly to his own bag with a cord he brought with him. Only then does he quickly collect as many battery packets as he can, stuffing them into the pockets of his bag.

_Well done, Pewdie_ , Torchy congratulates him. _You’ll definitely need these when my batteries run out. Don’t want you running around blindly in the dark_.

_God, no._ Pewdie agrees, already imagining the situation. _I really, really don’t want that to happen._

Once he finishes, he straightens up and turns – and Torchy’s light shines onto a zombie’s disfigured face.

Pewdie _jumps_ – and a hand clamps tightly over his mouth followed by an arm around his shoulder, holding both his voice and body down. Pewdie forces himself to stay still even though he is screaming hysterically inside.

The zombie standing in Torchy’s light must have wandered into their aisle. It is swaying a couple of feet away from them, perhaps drawn to the miniscule noises they were making which are not loud enough to wake it up from its sluggish state. Its face is terrible to look at, the right side of it is a smashed, bloody mess. All that remains of its right eye has been reduced to a milky, jelly-like fluid that is dripping down its ruined cheek – or what is left of it. The zombie’s head sways a little, its mouth lolling open, looking curious as to why the sounds have vanished, before it settles there and doesn’t move again, as if it finds itself comfortable at this spot.

Pewdie does not know how long he and Cry stand there, pressed against each other, with Cry’s palm clamped over Pewdie’s mouth. Eventually, Cry lets him go very slowly and shines his flashlight onto his face. Geez, Cry looks as terrified as he is.

_We go back slowly_ , Pewdie sees Cry mouth the words as he motions behind him. _Don’t scream_. 

He then feels Cry’s clammy hand grip him around the elbow. _Keep your light on it_ , Cry instructs. _I’ll lead you_.

They move painfully slow, taking small baby steps down the aisle. Pewdie decides he doesn’t give a shit at how long this is going to take, as long as they get away from this zombie. His heartbeat hasn’t stopped racing in his chest after that scare, and he misses the safety of his car, of driving down a road. He misses the days when situations like these only exist in his videogames and where he is safe and sound in a basement, armed with only his headphones and not a flashlight.

He misses those days a _lot_.

As they inch closer and closer to the other end of the aisle, Torchy’s light expands around the zombie, revealing the rest of its body. It’s wearing a uniform – no doubt this was an employee who worked at this hardware store – and the blood-splattered name tag pinned to its shirt uncovers that its name had been ‘Martin’. The more they move, the more features of the zombie can be seen and they soon discover to their disbelief that it is in fact not wearing any pants. They are pooled around its ankles, revealing the lower half of Zombie Martin’s body to be completely naked.

Except that there is a bloody cluster of mutilated flesh where Martin’s genitals used to be.

Pewdie isn’t sure what to react to this sight. He isn’t even sure what to _feel_ about it. For one thing, he wants to laugh out loud – because what the _fuck_ , what happened to it, how did it get this way? And – I can’t really believe I’m seeing this. That zombie has no fucking penis, goddamn it. Its name is Martin. _Martin_ , seriously? This has never happened before. This is too weird. This is too funny.

On the other hand, he also wants to scream because it looks too, too _horrible_ , too disgusting, too painful to look at.

He knows that Cry has seen it too and is probably feeling the same conflicting urges as he does to either laugh or scream, but his chosen response in the end is better. He merely turns his head and focuses hard on getting them away from this aisle.

Their patience finally pays off when Cry tugs his elbow, signalling their arrival at the end of the aisle, and motions his head towards the direction of the office, the only place that still emits light. He mouths, _Last place. Then we go_. Pewdie nods dumbly. He has to physically cover his mouth with his hand to stop himself from saying something about Zombie Martin. It’s so tempting to open his mouth and make a noise, but Cry’s grip on his elbow reminds him to keep quiet. 

Once again, their progress is slow – this side of the store has more zombies than usual. They have to manoeuvre their way around the frightening bunch. One of the zombies has lost its entire wrist, its existing forearm ending in exposed bone. There is one of a young boy, dried blood coating its mouth, staining all over its Captain America T-shirt. An undead man staggers around, hunched over by the weight of a fire axe planted crookedly on its back. Cry narrowly misses stepping onto a severed hand lying on the floor. 

Finally, they reach the office door, which is hanging half open, and they slip inside. The flickering light overhead reveals the office to be thankfully empty and Pewdie shuts the door, taking care not to click the lock.

It is only then that it is safe to relax and begin to breathe normally.

“Oh fucking hell,” Pewdie exhales, pushing his sweaty hair out of his face. He tucks Torchy into his pocket only because he knows he can’t hold it anymore without dropping it. “That was fucking _intense_.”

“Man the door,” Cry instructs, wiping his clammy hands on his trousers. The overhead light throws his form into light and darkness. “I’ll move quickly. Then we get the hell out of here.”

Pewdie watches the store beyond the glass windows of the office. It overlooks almost the entire vicinity of the store and he can see the number of shadowy figures staggering through the aisles. He comes up with a little over than thirty zombies trapped inside the building. _How the hell do we get out? He thinks. We go back to where we came or…_?

From the cluttered office desk, he hears Cry hiss for his attention. “Hey, look what I found,” he whispers excitedly. He holds up a chunky black device attached with an antenna and it looks like a walkie-talkie. Pewdie feels a grin and a spark of hope lift both his lips and spirit. Finally, he thinks. We can find a way to reach someone with this. We’ll be saved.

A sudden sound outside snaps them back to reality. Cry freezes for a second before he quickly stashes the transmission device into his almost full bag. “Let’s go,” he whispers urgently. “We’ve stayed here long enough–”

Except somehow, when Cry is putting in his latest find, his backpack shifts on top of the desk it rests on and bumps against an intercom button that none of them have seen earlier.

The Tannoy speakers around the store _ding dongs_ – and the sound _jars_ through the silence, echoing around the store. Every undead head in the building jerks, lifting towards the ceiling, waking up.

“Oh fuck,” Cry curses. His face loses its colour, matching the white fluorescent light which blinks off a second later.

“Okay, we got to go,” Pewdie says hastily, rushing over to Cry to pull him out of his frozen state. “Come on, bro. Keep focused. We can’t stay here any longer. They’ll find us. We have to go _now_.”

When they quietly slip outside, they are met with an activity of noise. The sounds of shuffling are less muffled now, footsteps moving faster, and groaning voices have risen to the point where they are resonating off the walls. Pewdie feels Cry stiffen beside him as they stare at the scene in front of them. The zombies are waking up, some shaking off their stupor and some already staggering around, heads turning here and there in an attempt to locate the loud noise which had roused them from inactivity. They have yet to spot the only two living people cornered against the office door and Pewdie dreads the moment when the treacherous pounding of his heart would become loud enough to alert the creatures of their presence. 

At the far end of the store, Pewdie knows that Bluey is parked outside, waiting for them beyond the front entrance. He knows there is no time to manoeuvre their way back to the rear entrance from which they came. Right now, Pewdie just focuses on the exit he knows that lies beyond the many rows of shelves and the group of zombies before them. 

His foot hits something solid which is lying on the floor on its side, propped against the wall. The flickering dim light from the office reveals it to be a metal folding ladder. A wild idea hits him and he thinks of the ladder and running and the entrance door with a hole in its glass. He gently nudges Cry on the side.

_Ladder_ , Pewdie mouths, pointing at the object. _Open it up_.

Cry’s eyes cast downwards and then flick back up at him in understanding. 

_Charge_? He guesses.

It’s certainly a foolish idea that Pewdie has come up with because it’s the sort of decision he would do when he’s playing a survival horror videogame, to grab anything he could find and charge through, never mind the thought of whether the objects he used are practical for the job. But what if it doesn’t work? What if they get jumped and dragged back into dozens of grabbing hands on the way? What if they get eaten in the attempt? What if they don’t make it? Then all this would have been for nothing.

But there is just _no_ time to think about anything else. 

_Let’s do this_ , Cry says through a nod, and even when he looks freaked out as hell in the flickering light, it’s enough to encourage him to go along with his idea. So Pewdie reassures him with a nod of his own, takes off his backpack and puts it back on from the front so that it covers his chest. He grasps one of the steps of the ladder and motions for Cry to take one from the opposite rail.

They proceed to unfold the ladder and the joints _squeak_. They both flinch at the sound and Pewdie thinks this is when they need to start working faster. Already the noise has caught a zombie’s attention and it begins staggering towards their direction.

_In_! Pewdie gestures wildly once the ladder unfolds and the spreader lock clicks to secure the ladder rails in place. They scramble to tuck themselves in between the rails, squeezing into the limited space it offers and lift the ladder, the top facing forward like an arrow, and take a second to brace themselves. Pewdie fumbles to pull Torchy out of his pocket and switch it on. He clutches it tightly in his hand.

“Ready?” he hears Cry murmur into his ear. His voice is shaking a little. “Don’t stop for anything.”

Pewdie draws in a single deep breath and releases it in a purely (unintentional) battle cry:

_“CHAAARGE!”_

 

The next thing Cry sees is a blur too fast for him to process. He can’t see where he’s going because Pewdie’s head is in the way and it is dark in front of them, even with Pewdie’s flashlight illuminating a portion of their route. Their feet take flight, crossing over uneven ground, and twice Cry trips over something on the floor but thankfully regains his balance in time. One arm curls securely around the ladder step he holds up while his other hand clutches hard onto the back of Pewdie’s shirt. 

There is a horrible moment when they feel their ladder judder hard in their grip as they smash through several undead bodies. Pewdie continues yelling frantically as he directs their path and Cry wants to smack him for making so much noise. His yells echo around the building, resonating off the walls and it’s chaos in here and Cry realises he’s yelling too and he thinks he feels fingers pull at his sleeve, at his arms, at his legs, and he dares not to look. He might be calm when handling one or two zombies in the past but facing a crowd of them isn’t really what he wants to deal with. 

_This isn’t going to work_ , Cry isn’t sure he’s thinking it or screaming it aloud. _We are going to die. We are going to fucking_ die _here._

“Fucking zombies!” he hears Pewdie shriek in front of him. “Get out of the way! _Arrrrghhh_! No! You, you stay down. I don’t like you! No, no. Go back to sleep, _back_ to sleep, zombies – argh, stop, stop, _aiiee, aieee_!” he whimpers before screeching loudly again and it’s kind of funny because it sounds just like Pewdie doing commentary on his gameplays again. “ _Don’t_ come near us. _No_. Fuckity fuck. Cry, Cry, are you still alive – just keep fucking _running_. Don’t stop for anything–”

Cry gets the scare of his life when he feels something grab onto his backpack, followed by a snarling voice in his ear. Panic rises in him as he tries in vain to shake the unseen zombie off of him, tries not to picture it lean over to take a bite out of his ear. He can hear its mouth snapping, reaching for him from the bulky backpack and he wonders why it hasn’t yet bitten him. He can’t let go of the ladder now to reach for his shovel which is hanging from the makeshift strap on his shoulder. For one millisecond, he wants to shrug off his backpack and risk losing all the things they’d collected, including the transmission device he discovered in the office, but before he can make another move, Pewdie yells at him from over his shoulder.

“Run faster!” he commands. “We’re going to hit the glass doors!”

Ignoring the zombie attached to his backpack – and it is _so_ hard to do so without wanting to freak out – Cry spurts forward, willing himself to move faster, expecting to get bitten before they hit the doors. The front entrance, the hole punched through its glass. He can now see it now, moving closer and closer to them with each step. He doesn’t dare look back, doesn’t dare to see how many zombies are on their tail right now. 

All he thinks is, _we’re not going to make it in time._

The top of the ladder rams into the doors and the glass smashes into pieces as they pierce through it. The impact sends shock waves shuddering through their bodies and Pewdie is screaming and Cry is screaming as large shards of broken glass rain on them. The heavy weight on his backpack, the zombie that had been attached to him is now gone, thrown off by the collision. 

And then they are _outside_ , finally outside and it’s dark as fuck as they’re sprinting and gasping in the cool night air, and right there, there’s Pewdie’s car and Cry has never been so fucking happy to see that old, battered, blue thing that he sometimes hears Pewdie murmur affectionately to when he isn’t looking –

Cry makes the mistake of looking over his shoulder at the building they have left behind, and gasps.

A crowd of zombies, more than a dozen or so, are staggering energetically after them, all collectively squeezing through the jagged hole recently made on the entrance doors, not caring that the sharp glass edges are cutting through their decomposing skin. One or two are already outside, following them across the empty parking lot.

“We need to ditch this!” Cry yells to Pewdie’s back about their ladder. “They’re after us!”

“On _three_!” Pewdie screeches back and it turns out they don’t need a countdown because they both drop the ladder at the same time and scramble to get out from between the rails. They reach the car and Cry tears the passenger door open and dives inside, tossing his backpack and shovel into the backseat. Pewdie slams his door shut and _shrieks_ when a zombie throws itself onto the driver’s window, making the car shake.

“Start the damn car!” Cry instructs hysterically. He can see more and more of them coming; _god_ there’s so many of them, how the fuck did they get past so _many_ of them–

Pewdie starts the engines, flicking on the headlights, and slams his foot on the gas. The car jerks into motion and Pewdie swerves it around the ladder they’ve ditched and sees exactly what they have narrowly escaped from.

“Holy–” he breathes as the car hurtles past the crowd of zombies spilling out onto the parking lot. They don’t have time to look anymore as they take an exit that leads them back down to the wild highway.

It is only ten minutes later, ten long minutes of silence broken only by their frantic and erratic breathing, that the situation finally dawns on them – and when it does, it is _unbelievable_.

“Oh my fucking god,” Pewdie, of course, is the first to vocalise this startling realisation.

“Holy _shit_ , man!” Cry all but screams it out. His hands, his limbs, his whole body is shaking uncontrollably like a leaf. He cannot believe what had just happened. “Holy. Fucking. _Shit_ ,” he exclaims again and what the hell, his eyes are wet and Cry rubs them with the back of his trembling hand. He cannot stop himself from shaking – or dry sobbing in disbelief at their narrow escape from death.

“Cry,” Pewdie says quietly and it’s curious why this happens because Pewdie has always been loud with everything and it’s curious that he isn’t loud now. Cry can’t see him but he feels the other’s hand pat reassuringly on his forearm. 

“We made it, Cry,” Pewdie murmurs in awe beside him. “We’re still alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. (How do you like this monster so far?)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains scenes of a disturbing nature. You have been warned. 
> 
> Also, prepare for some bromance. Sort of.

**04.**

An hour passes after their miraculous escape from the zombie-infested hardware store. Eventually, once Cry stops himself from shaking, he begins to realise that his body feels sore and his hand is smarting. It’s too dark in the car to see anything so he traces a line which seems to be cut across the inside joints of his fingers. They don’t feel like teeth marks (god, please tell me I didn’t get bitten) but he tries to experimentally open and close his hand anyway, hissing a little when his fingers give a painful throb.

Whatever it is, he needs to check it out. So he reaches up to click on the car dome light to further examine his hands. When Pewdie gives a whine beside him for suddenly flooding the car with bright light, Cry turns and sees a line of blood which has streaked down Pewdie’s face, staining his cheek red.

“You’re bleeding,” Cry points out, alarmed. “We should stop somewhere and patch that up before it gets infected.”

“I _am_?” Pewdie shoots a quick glance at the rear-view mirror to see his reflection. His bewildered expression changes to that of shock. “Holy shit. I’m bleeding. I’m bleeding, Cry. How come I didn’t even notice this?”

“Pull over,” Cry instructs, popping open the glove compartment to extract one of their first aid kits. “The last thing we want right now is for you to pass out while driving.”

They are lucky enough to spot another large billboard up ahead – some commercial about the country’s best pie – and park the car behind it. They leave the dome light on so Pewdie can properly study himself in the rear-view mirror while Cry readies the antiseptic and plasters. It’s silent in the car as Pewdie carefully peels his blood-stained hair off his face to inspect the damage. He then stares dazedly at his reflection and doesn’t move for a long time.

Suddenly, Cry feels panic rise in his chest at the other’s stillness. He kicks his door open, startling Pewdie, and goes out to take a few things from the trunk, navigating in the dark by flashlight. He returns with a torn strip of cloth and a precious bottle of water.

“I’ll do it,” Pewdie says, reaching for the items but Cry yanks them out of reach.

“Hold your hair back,” he says instead and hopes the firmness in his tone would compel the other to obey. He’s not sure if it’s a trick of the light but Pewdie looks a little flustered by his words.

“You really don’t need to,” says Pewdie, shaking his head a little. “Really, Cry. I’m fine. I can do it. _Don’t_ –” his words cut off and Cry realises that Pewdie seems embarrassed by the attention given to him. Cry had reacted on panic after all when he frantically scrambled out to fetch things from the trunk, thinking that Pewdie might have been seriously hurt. After realising that Pewdie had noticed his reaction, Cry can’t help but reciprocate the same feeling of embarrassment as well.

Except that this really isn’t the time for any of that. He needs to turn his attention to the matter at hand. “Man up, bro,” he says encouragingly to Pewdie and probably to himself as well. “And hold your hair back, okay?”

A few minutes later, Cry is gingerly cleaning the cut around Pewdie’s eyebrow with the strip of damp cloth, now stained red with blood.

“So how long do I have left, doctor?” Pewdie asks melodramatically, gazing wistfully up at him. “A week to live?”

“Oh, you’re lucky it’s not deep,” Cry shoots back with a smile, peering at the faint line across the other’s skin. He coats a wad of cotton wool with some antiseptic and looks back at Pewdie expectantly.

“Go for it,” says Pewdie. Cry can sense him tensing a little and he gives a playful scoff, intending to be encouraging, “Relax, Pewds. It’ll just feel like a pinch.”

Pewdie doesn’t make a noise when Cry lightly presses the swabbed wad onto the shallow cut but he does flinch away at the contact. By the time Pewdie straightens up, Cry has already stuck a plaster over it.

“There’s blood in my hair,” Pewdie says, wiping his stained locks. “I guess it makes sense to get cut after smashing through glass like we did but – What about _you_? Are you hurt anywhere?”

Cry remembers his hand stinging and quickly puts his palm up to the light. He can see thin red lines cut across the inside of his fingers and his thumb is swollen, streaked with tiny little red dots. Bruised, he thinks automatically, recognising this type of injury. From gripping the ladder when it smashed hard through the glass. Definitely _not_ a bite mark. There is nothing much to do with a bruise like this unless they have ice cubes at their disposal, which they don’t.

Pewdie seizes his wrist and exclaims, “Geez. That looked like it hurt.”

“It feels numb actually,” says Cry, letting Pewdie examine his hand closer in the light. He falls into a thoughtful silence as he stares blankly at the bruise. Although the memory of their escape remains fresh in his mind, when it comes back to him this time, the whole thing suddenly feels unreal, like a dream, as if they hadn’t just experienced it a little over an hour ago. He can still recall the emotions and the atmosphere of that time – remembers the tension, the fear, the adrenaline rush, the shuddering jolt as they break through glass, the overwhelming sense of relief at their survival – but they’re distant now. Distant like a dream. Did all that really happen?

“Whoa, you alright there?” Pewdie gives his wrist a little tug, jerking him out of his thoughts. “How are you holding up?”

“Sorry,” says Cry, pulling his hand back. “I’m fine. Just… still a little shocked.” It’s not true though, he’s no longer in a state of shock. More like bewildered – bewildered that they are here, alive and breathing, and not eaten by zombies or ripped to shreds by broken glass. He thinks, if I’d gone in there on my own without anyone to back me up, I would’ve been dead in five minutes.

“It’s weird,” Pewdie says suddenly and his voice is serious for once. “I can hardly believe all that actually happened. It’s like watching two other people do this stuff and escape without getting killed. You know, like they’re not us. Because if it _were_ us, we wouldn’t have survived.” He lets out a short laugh, “It’s sort of feels like–”

“–A dream,” Cry finishes for him the moment he realises that Pewdie’s words mirror his own thoughts. “Yeah, that’s exactly it.”

“We were like, sneaking past _fifty_ zombies or something–” Pewdie gestures wildly with his hands.

“With flashlights!” Cry adds.

“We had to be in ninja stealth mode–”

“Exactly. And we were quiet enough that they didn’t even _hear_ us.”

“‘Cos we’re _awesome_ like that. Awesome ninjas. We even escaped Zombie Martin.”

Zombie Martin? Cry couldn’t help letting out a giggle. “Zombie Martin?” he says aloud because he can’t begin to pinpoint what was funny about that creature – Pewdie’s nickname for him, or the fact that Zombie Martin wasn’t wearing any pants and was missing a dick.

Except Pewdie thought he was giggling at the latter reason because he bursts into uncontrollable laughter, making Cry laugh even more because Pewdie’s laughs are just fucking contagious – before gasping, “What the hell happened to him? I’ve never seen anything like it before. _Anywhere._ Not in _any_ zombie movie I’ve seen. He must’ve had a hard time getting laid.”

“Or someone had been a little too enthusiastic with him,” Cry joins in the raunchy talk because he really can’t help it if he sees an opening. “I think he needs to lay off the blow job requests from now on.”

“Oh my god,” Pewdie struggles to speak above Cry’s laughing. “He should dump that zombie girlfriend of his. She really needs to learn not to bite too hard next time.”

“Oh my god, Pewds. You _didn’t._ ”

“Oh, but I _did_.”

It’s funny how many dick-related jokes they can come up with, and their laughter fills the interior of the car for another five minutes before they lapse into silence. Suddenly, like the aftermath of a violent storm, Cry thinks Zombie Martin’s fate isn’t so hilarious after all.

“It’s horrible,” he finds himself saying aloud. “What happened to him, to his face, to… you know.”

“I think he got attacked in the toilets,” Pewdie murmurs gravely. “I really don’t want _that_ happening to me if I were to die at the hands of a zombie.” He then hums thoughtfully and says, “Not that I _want_ to die any sooner. But… I’m glad though. That you were around to stop me, Cry. That you were there with me. Otherwise, I would’ve screamed when I saw Martin and gotten us killed.”

The look Pewdie gives him right now leaves him with a warm feeling in his chest and Cry feels that he needs to confess something of his own. It’s surprising that he and Pewdie seem to be thinking and feeling the exact same things. It’s surprising how synchronised they seem to be at this moment, how this makes it easier for him to open up to the other because he knows that Pewdie will understand. It’s strangely different from before, from when the world used to be normal and he and Pewdie sometimes have heartfelt talks over Skype, because he’s never been in a situation where he literally owes someone his life.

And so he does. Cry says quietly, “I need to tell you something. Remember when I accidentally pressed that intercom button in that office?”

“Oh yeah, Cry,” says Pewdie mischievously, giving him a mock-accusing stare. “You fucked up.”

“Oh shut up,” Cry waves it off with a laugh even though deep down, the accusation leaves him with a horrible feeling of guilt. “I’m being serious here… look, when we were facing those zombies all waking up, I really thought we were done for. I honestly couldn’t see a way out. My mind sort of went blank for a second. I mean, I knew we couldn’t go through the back door and how could we get to the front one without getting attacked?”

Cry pauses to let out a deep breath. He knows that Pewdie is listening to him carefully now, not wanting to interrupt him, so he continues on, “What I’m trying to say is, if it weren’t for your quick thinking with the ladder… basically, we wouldn’t have gotten out of the shit I put us in if it weren’t for you, Pewds. So, thanks.”

That’s it then, Cry tells himself. We’ve both laid everything onto the table.

There is an awkward stretch of silence before Pewdie’s face breaks into a smile. “We make a pretty awesome team,” he points out and – goddamn it, it’s the best idea in the world.

“Awesome ninja _stealth_ team,” Cry corrects with a grin.

“Awesome ninja stealth team fighting against zombies,” Pewdie adds. “We should make our own videogame. Have the characters sneak past zombies and earn achievement points.”

“That’ll be _your_ game,” Cry says, snorting. “I’m fucking done with zombies.”

“Oh, but we _are_ keeping the awesome ninja stealth team, right?” Pewdie’s grin is blinding once again. “Of course we are. That team is _us._ We’ll be okay as long as we stick together, eh? Am I right, bro?”

He lifts his fist, holding it towards him, and Cry wants to laugh again because he hasn’t seen a fist bump in what he thinks is _years_. It’s so wonderfully familiar and it reminds him of better times, of times when he sits at home and creates videos that help make the world a happier place.

“Totally,” he agrees, and bumps his fist against Pewdie’s warm one.

  

Pewdie wakes up to a face full of sunlight and groans, intending to turn over. Then Cry’s voice flows into his ear.

“You’re awake,” he says and Pewdie lifts his stiff, sore wrist to cover his eyes from the sun’s glare. “No, no, don’t go back to sleep,” Cry scolds. “Come on, got something to show you.”

“How are you even awake so early?” Pewdie mutters, straightening up in his seat and rubbing his face, feeling the plaster on his eyebrow. “Did you get any sleep last night?” It’s the morning after their miraculous escape and they’re still parked behind the giant billboard. It’s a shame that they’re facing eastwards because the sun right now is a little fucking annoying.

“Yes I did,” Cry says patiently. Pewdie can’t see his eyes since the sunlight is reflecting off his glasses, but he does see that Cry is holding something in his hand. When Pewdie blinks his groggy eyes a few times to get his vision into focus, he recognises the chunky black device they retrieved from the hardware store.

“The walkie-talkie?” he says.

“Even better,” Cry goes to correct him. “It’s a handheld CB radio. It’s good for use in remote areas and also perfect for times like these…”

The pause that Cry leaves makes Pewdie purse his lips. “You don’t know how to use it?” he guesses, reaching for the device.

Cry lets him take it. “No idea,” he says and when Pewdie begins to examine the CB radio in his hand, he adds, “Also, it doesn’t work because there aren’t enough batteries.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Pewdie says incredulously. “I got us a whole bunch of batteries back at the hardware store–”

“Yeah, I know,” Cry cuts in a little sombrely. “I took the liberty to check. You’ve collected a whole bunch of them – AAAs, Cs, Ds, some other sizes, but not enough AAs. This thing needs about nine of them. We’ve only got two working ones left.”

Pewdie stares at the device in his hand. “Are you kidding me?” he mutters again, disappointed at the discovery that their one item of hope turns out to be useless after all. Except what stops him from wallowing in that disappointment is that Cry is looking at him expectantly. He looks restless, like he wants to tell him something but is waiting for Pewdie to give the signal.

“I’ve been thinking,” Cry starts anyway because apparently, Pewdie’s bemused expression turns out to be the signal for him to speak. “We did pretty okay when we looted the hardware store, right? Maybe we could do it again… but this time, we find some other place. We could find new batteries for our CB radio, get this thing to finally work so that we’ll be able to call for help. What do you say?”

It takes Pewdie several seconds for all that to absorb into his sleep-addled mind. When it does, he isn’t sure what he is hearing, “Wait, are you saying you want us to go into _another_ place with lots of zombies just to get more batteries for this thing?”

Cry’s gaze is blazing with eagerness, “That pretty much sums it up.”

Pewdie isn’t really against the idea of a second attempt because he already knows that they will eventually have to do more of these as time goes by. He merely feels uneasy at the feeling that their luck might have run out after surviving that first supply run at the zombie-infested hardware store. Then again, Cry looks quite determined as he sits there with the CB radio which he took back in his hands. He looks determined that they are able to pull it off the second time, all because–

“We’ll be okay,” says Cry reassuringly. “As long as we stick together, right?”

The words strike a familiar cord within him and Pewdie grins, recognising that the words had been his own. Seeing the grin forming on his face, Cry’s lips twitch upwards into a smile.

“What?” he says, sounding amused. “What’s so funny?”

“I’m not laughing,” says Pewdie with a slight shake of his head. “Why are _you_ laughing?”

“Who’s laughing?” Despite what he says, Cry is the first one who lets out a peal of laughter. “I don’t even know why this is funny. All I said was that we try out his whole ninja stealth thing again. Just like that videogame idea you mentioned last night. I mean, we _did_ do good yesterday, right? We know what to avoid next time. We move slow, we keep quiet, we take our time and most importantly, we don’t wake up the zombies. Besides, we work well together. We got us out of that place mostly intact. I’m sure we can do it again.”

“Well then, lead the way, Cry,” Pewdie says, sweeping a hand towards the open road. “I have no idea where the nearest store is. We need to plan this carefully. Map– er, _the_ map is under your seat, I think… actually, do you have any idea where the fuck we are?”

Cry blinks before he lowers his window to lean his head outside. A few seconds later, he pulls back, muttering, “I have no idea where the fuck we are.”

“Get that map out,” Pewdie says, pretending to sound business-like as he settles back in his seat. He fires up Bluey and pulls the seatbelt strap over his chest, clicking it in securely. “We’ve got work to do.”

  

So it begins, their “awesome ninja stealth team”. It’s what they decided to call themselves even though it’s as cheesy as hell but it gives them something to be proud about. They drive on for hours, for days, until they finally find a very secluded retail park that is scattered with about a dozen zombies but also has something of an electronics store that is stacked between two clothes shops. They park a little away from it and recon the area for about an hour, planning the best way to break into the electronics store without disturbing the wandering undead.

“Sneak in through the back door again?” Cry suggests.

“Where _is_ the back door anyway?” Pewdie points out while gazing through a set of binoculars that Cry scavenged from the hardware store. “I really don’t think we can pull this off if we decide the only way in is through the front door.”

“That is, if we assume that the front door is _locked_ ,” Cry shoots back thoughtfully. “If it isn’t locked, I wouldn’t need to use the lock pick. That thing makes too much noise.”

In the end, they decide to risk it and creep their way past the zombies, choosing a route where they can maintain at least a five feet gap of space between themselves and the creatures. They keep extra quiet as they take their time to reach the store’s front entrance, rejoicing silently together when they find it unlocked. There is one zombie inside, a former shop assistant with two gunshot wounds in the middle of its chest, and it stands languidly by the glass counter, staring blankly into the distance. Discovering the presence of their unwanted guest, Cry and Pewdie stand by the shut door, wondering what to do with it.

Pewdie shoots a look at Cry and eyes the shovel hanging on the makeshift strap off his shoulder. _Bash its head_? He mouths. Cry shakes his head, unsure if it’s a good idea. Will they make too much noise if that were to happen? Would the sound of a shovel smashing through a decomposing head be loud enough to literally wake the undead outside?

_Keep an eye on it,_ Cry commands Pewdie in the end, deciding not to risk it. There is no need to kill them unless the zombies are the ones who attack them first. _I’ll go look for the batteries._

He’s grateful that Pewdie doesn’t argue with him so he leaves the latter to stand watch. He doesn’t spend too long searching through the stuff in the store. There are a few things behind the counter that he’s tempted to take but he doesn’t want to go anywhere near the zombie. In the end, he finds no packets of batteries anywhere. The display racks, which are supposed to have the items hanging from their hooks, stand completely empty. Furthermore, there is no sign in the store that sells anything CB radio-related. Eventually, he gives up the search and motions for Pewdie, who Cry can see is already restless because of the way he absent-mindedly taps a rhythm onto his flashlight, that it’s time to leave.

They breathe a collective sigh of relief the moment they sneak back into the car and drive off. This second attempt had been amazingly fortunate for them so far, since they managed to slip past a number of zombies and the undead shop assistant without disturbing them. The only thing that dampened their spirits was their lack of success in finding any battery cells for the CB radio.

“We must have been really lucky at that hardware store,” Pewdie murmurs as he swerves the car out of the highway and onto a smaller road. “I guess one of the first things that people will stock up when there’s a crisis will be batteries. They’ll probably be the first thing to go. That’s why you can’t find them anywhere anymore. Also, we did another good job,” he adds. “We’re still alive and kicking.”

This second experience doesn’t feel as intense as the first, even though the amount of danger involved in both are similar. Cry finds that he does agree with Pewdie that they’ve done pretty well so far. The combined feeling of relief and triumph after leaving a scene of peril unscathed is overwhelming, addicting, and he finds that he wants to try again. He wants to keep finding things, to slip past zombies unseen, to feel invincible, because he feels he can do it – they _both_ can do it as long as they stick together, as long as they have each other’s backs.

The next time they find somewhere with a shop which probably sells batteries, they decide not to go through with looting it. The zombies in this area stagger around in groups, moving together with purpose. It’s the first time they start to see the difference between the dormant-type of zombies that they’d dealt with and the ones which are fully awake. The way they are wander around the area gives a vital clue – the inactive ones are scattered about, languidly floating about like balloons while the active ones congregate in clusters, moving like a pack of wild dogs.

The only reason they were lucky enough to slip past the undead creatures in the hardware store and electronics shop was because no living human had visited both places for such a long time, and the lack of living flesh to pursue had rendered the zombies inactive. They only rouse into being when they hear a noise loud enough to attract their attention. That’s when they become dangerous predators.

They know they see a losing battle when their car passes by the shop and about a dozen zombies jerk their heads at the noise of the engines and begin staggering after them. In two seconds, the group of a dozen zombies become two dozen, all travelling together in a mass of bodies, hurrying after their car and it’s terrifying how they can suddenly move that fast, so Cry tells Pewdie to step on it and they zoom away.

  

They don’t spend all their time searching for batteries. There’s still the regular supply runs for food, water and other essentials but they only collect them from selected venues with fewer to no zombies around. Sometimes it’s an abandoned house, sometimes it’s a convenience store. Once, when they’re stealing overripe fruits and vegetables off someone’s garden, Pewdie startles badly when he spots a female zombie, formerly a little old lady, standing blankly at them through the window of the house which overlooks the garden they are in.

“She can’t see us,” Cry reassures him as he tosses a couple of potatoes he unearthed into the half-filled rusty bucket. “Unless we fire a gunshot or something, she won’t start clawing her way out of the house to get us.”

“But it’s like she’s _watching_ us,” Pewdie whines nervously, eyeing the undead old woman, at the dried blood coating her white hair. “It’s so creepy.”

On a blazing hot afternoon a few days later, Pewdie looks at the gas tank meter and mutters, “We’re almost out. Where’s the nearest gas station?”

“Wasn’t there one about a couple of miles back?” Cry recalls from his seat. He’s busy eating a packet of peanuts while examining Map’s frayed, dog-eared pages. Sometimes when he eats in the passenger seat, he absent-mindedly holds out whatever food he has for Pewdie to take. On other days, Cry becomes a selfish bitch and doesn’t share a crumb of his food with him at all.

“Isn’t there one anywhere up ahead?” Pewdie asks again.

“Nope,” says Cry.

“Well, fuck.”

About fifteen minutes later, the gas tank meter starts flashing.

“ _Cry_ ,” Pewdie wails, tapping the meter’s clear plastic.

“We’ve got a hose,” Cry says suddenly, straightening up in his seat. “In the trunk. You swiped it from that old lady’s garden. We’re finally about to put it to good use.”

“If you’re thinking what I’m thinking…” Pewdie murmurs, shooting suspicious glances at Cry because he already has visions of a car, a hose, a gas tank and a bucket in his mind. “But there aren’t any cars around for us to do that.”

“Actually, there _is_ ,” Cry points at something up ahead and they see a couple of skid marks on the road leading to the remains of a small car which has collided against a tree. When Pewdie slowly pulls up beside it, they notice that only the front part of the car is crushed inwards, a branch punching a hole through the glass. The back of the car, including the trunk and gas tank, is fortunately still intact. There is thankfully no one inside, meaning that whoever the driver had been must have escaped the scene alive.

“Do you know how to do this?” Pewdie asks as he watches Cry unscrew the cap from the broken car’s gas tank. The strong smell of petrol begins to fill the air.

“Actually no,” Cry admits as he puts the cap aside and dangles the length of the hose in his hands. “I’ve never done this but I’ve seen someone else do it in a video once. You take a hose and then you’ve got to use your mouth to suck the gas out.”

“That sounds like fun,” Pewdie jokes half-heartedly.

Cry’s gaze doesn’t waver, “It isn’t.”

When they set to work, it doesn’t help that the heat and the strong, dizzying smell of petrol begins to make them both irritable. Pewdie lets out a line of colourful curses in Swedish every time one end of the hose keeps slipping out of the gas tank while they work on tying the other end into a loop. When Pewdie trips over one of their gas jugs, Cry shoots him a glare at his clumsiness.

Once they set the hose in place, Cry is the first to try sucking on the looped end in order to draw the fuel out, but after several failed attempts, he looks ready to toss the whole thing onto the floor. When Pewdie takes over the job instead, he’s more fruitful in his endeavour but unluckily for him, a small amount of petrol escapes through the loop and enters into his mouth.

“You okay?” Cry asks concernedly when Pewdie doesn’t stop coughing and spluttering. Cry has the easier job, Pewdie thinks glumly, of holding the hose in place as gallons of petrol gush into the jugs.

“ _No_ ,” is what he spits out bitterly, not facing the other when he speaks. The taste of gas in his tongue is _revolting_ and he doesn’t stop rinsing his mouth with their precious water until the water bottle is finished. A few minutes later, there are footsteps behind him and he feels Cry’s hand lightly pat him on the back. He suddenly relaxes at the gesture. Somehow, he doesn’t feel that much irritated by what he had to go through.

On one late morning, they drive into a strip mall littered with bodies. Upon closer inspection, it’s obvious that they had all been zombies, and it seems that someone had rampaged through the area, killing each and every one of them in a number of different yet equally horrific ways. What they see, as they silently drive through, is disturbing. There’s a body of a teenaged girl lying in a shallow drain with its head bashed open and its brains spilling out, while a headless man’s body sits awkwardly against a blood-splattered brick wall. There is a small pile of burnt bodies stacked on top of each other like a bonfire, and someone has taken a shot to a zombie’s face, obliterating almost all its features, leaving a gory hole where its eyes, cheeks, nose and mouth had been.

It’s eerily silent here, not even the wind stirs the flag suspended in the middle of the parking lot.

“This is kind of creepy,” Cry finally comments aloud as he gazes uneasily at the scene through his window. Whoever had killed all these zombies must have been utterly ruthless. For the first time in weeks, he feels a sense of fear not only towards the undead but also the living. He doesn’t need to voice this out to Pewdie because he knows that the other is probably thinking the same thing.

His uneasiness quickly turns into alarm when Pewdie parks the car at an inconspicuous spot and turns off the engine. “What the hell are you _doing_?” Cry yelps.

“Supply run,” says Pewdie breezily. “Look, all the zombies are dead. Which leaves the whole place to ourselves. If you’re still unsure about this, bring your shovel.” In reality, Pewdie also feels disturbed by the state of the dead zombies, by the way they were killed, but his guts tell him that this is a lucky opportunity that they should take while they still can.

After half an hour of some very thorough examination of the area, Pewdie’s statement turns out to be true. There is nothing living or undead around anywhere and it is only then that Cry allows himself to relax. They end up staying at the strip mall for the entire day because of the kinds of shops available for them to look through – a few clothing stores, a supermarket, a hairdresser’s, a bakery, a shoe shop, a music store and a few others. Although they discover that all of these shops have already been raided, there are still enough useful items left around for them to take.

When they enter a clothing outlet, they take the opportunity to change into fresh, new clothes. It’s about time they do so since their old ones have become dirty, frayed and torn over time. They spend a while inside, trying out this and that, and when Cry is just adjusting the zipper of a new hoodie he had just put on, Pewdie strolls over and dumps a cap on top of his head.

“Perfect,” Pewdie says with a theatrical wave of his hand.

“What the hell is this?” says Cry, pulling the cap off. It’s a plain, cheap-looking cap with a flat brim imprinted with a rainbow-coloured cartoon duck. He gets the reference easily because Pewdie has a weird thing for ducks, but the cap turns out to be a little too big for him.

“To complete your look,” Pewdie points out. “Also, to keep your hair in. It’s starting to grow out of control.”

“Well, _you’re_ starting to look like a girl,” Cry says insultingly, eyeing Pewdie’s own locks. “Maybe you should get a haircut.”

“Maybe _we_ should get haircuts,” Pewdie suddenly corrects and it’s not an argument he’s presenting this time but a suggestion, and Cry recognises the reason behind it, remembers a crucial piece of advice Chuck gives in _The Walking Dead_ game. If their hair grows long enough, it will become a liability since there’s a higher chance of it getting grabbed by zombies’ wandering hands.

He and Pewdie look at each other in mutual understanding before diverting their gazes outside, where they had spotted a hairdresser’s on the way to this store. When they make their way there, they find to their disbelief that someone had taken away every sharp object from the place. The only thing they can use left is the pair of barber shears which have been stabbed into the back of a female zombie’s curly head.

“This is disgusting,” Pewdie moans in revulsion as he forces himself to hold down the zombie’s head so that Cry can pull out the shears that are stuck into its skull.

Once they clean the shears the best they can, they take turns cutting off each other’s hair. In the end though, it’s Cry who is the worst of the two because Pewdie spends about ten minutes whining about how imbalanced it all looks now that it’s trimmed short.

“Can’t you see how this side is longer than the other?” Pewdie says, tugging at his shortened hair once they leave the hairdresser’s. “If I had known you were bad at this, I would’ve–” his words trail off as he suddenly stops in front of the music store. When he doesn’t move for a few seconds, Cry peers over his shoulder, trying to follow the direction of his gaze.

“What is it?” he asks, confused. There’s nothing interesting inside. The glass displays have been smashed, its contents seized, and the interior of the store, like everywhere else, is dark and dusty from disuse.

Pewdie suddenly seizes him by the shoulder, almost knocking the cap that he had given him earlier on off his head, and points at something by the music store counter. Cry doesn’t know how the other is able to see whatever it is he is pointing at from this distance and in this gloom, but thank god that he does.

“Batteries!” Pewdie exclaims happily. “I think I see some AAs. We’re in luck, Cry. We’ve got batteries!” He feels Pewdie’s hand wrap around his wrist before he is tugged into the shop.

Although there’s only one packet containing four AA battery cells hanging from a display rack by the counter, they take it anyway because it’s the best find they have in so many days. It assures them that they’re one step closer to collecting the remaining number of batteries, one stop closer to making their CB radio work, one step closer to being saved.

“Good job, Cry,” Pewdie congratulates him even though Cry isn’t the one who had found the batteries. He grins widely, so brilliant it looks in the gloom of the music store, and silently offers his fist to him. Cry feels a warm feeling rise in his chest, bubbling out of his mouth in a huff of laughter, and bumps his own fist firmly against Pewdie’s.

On the dawn of the following day, armed with a variety of new supplies which have been stowed away into the trunk, they drive off in the rising sunrise, leaving the strange, deathly strip mall behind them.

  

The days blur inconspicuously into weeks and soon, a month passes by.

Life on the road has its ups and downs and they do see their share of awful, unsettling things while travelling. One afternoon, they drive past a horde of zombies feasting on a live cow. The animal had been trying to escape their clutches in vain and when it collapses on the ground after an undead woman gnaws on one of its legs, the rest of the group fall onto it like a pack of lions on a gazette. It’s a horrible sight to watch something alive being torn to bits in minutes and they quickly drive away before their car starts attracting attention.

Once, when they are driving down a small, dirt road, a pickup truck flashes past them, missing their car by inches, before swerving out of control. From a distance, they could just see the driver in the truck struggling in vain against a zombie whose teeth are buried into his shoulder. Pewdie’s first instinct is to find some way of helping him but that idea is extinguished when the truck suddenly flips and rolls over several times before coming to land with the wheels up, the many tonnes of metal crushing both man and zombie into a pulp.

They decide to stop at a motel on another early evening as the sun begins to set so they could take a break from driving. However, when they enter the room they had chosen to stay in, they discover, to their horror, the bodies of a family of four involved in a mass suicide. The parents lie sprawled on the floor, their heads haloed by pools of blood leaking from the gunshot wounds on their temples. Two children, around ten to eleven years old, are curled together on a sofa, their blank faces deathly pale and the back of their heads bloody.

This is crazy, Cry gasps, appalled by the sight. It’s terrible, what happened to these people. It’s terrible to see how the world right now can drive a family to extreme measures like this.

Beside him, Pewdie turns his face away, unable to look at the scene before them any longer. A second later, he suddenly spins back sharply, looking terribly disturbed, before he brushes past Cry and leaves the room without another word.

“Pewds…?” Cry calls weakly, not wanting to be left alone in this terrible place. He glances over at wherever Pewdie had been facing and notices a bed there, realises exactly what the other had seen to make him react like that. There is something small lying on top of blood-splattered bed sheets and when he stares at it a little longer, he discerns a human-shaped bundle of clothes attached with two pairs of limbs. He sees a small arm that ends with a set of chubby little fingers belonging to an infant child. A large pillow covers its head, covering the worst of the blood stains.

Cry feels his blood turn cold. Suddenly, he feels unclean, he feels sick, he feels _wrong,_ and all he wants right now is get out of this room.

Pewdie is already in the car when he runs out of the motel room and they instantly drive away the moment Cry slips into the passenger seat. They drive in silence for a while before Cry glances over at Pewdie and sees him staring mournfully at the road before him. He is stunned to notice the tears that are silently running down the other’s face.

“Pewds,” Cry says softly, sadly and a little helplessly, because he doesn’t know what he can do to make it better. How can you try and make it better after seeing something like that?

“Pewds,” Cry calls again, even more softly, like a whisper, and this time, it rouses Pewdie out of his thoughts. “You’re crying.”

They have to stop the car for a while and Cry patiently waits to let Pewdie calm down and collect himself. After that, they don’t talk about what they had seen and don’t stop at any more motels they happen to pass by.

  

Despite this, despite all the perturbing things they’ve seen, it really isn’t all that bad, this dangerous life they have now, since it doesn’t really get boring in the car when they’re roaring down an empty highway. When it does get a little quiet, Pewdie sometimes slips in a random CD from a collection they stole from the music store weeks ago and lets Cry sing along to all the tunes while he beat-boxes alongside him. Cry isn’t a terribly good singer or a terribly bad one either but sometimes when he croons out songs, his voice goes a little too high-pitched and it makes Pewdie burst into fits of laughter that he can’t control.

At times when Pewdie gets tired of driving, he lets Cry take the wheel but it’s short-lived because Cry drives like a mad man and Pewdie spends most of that time gripping the passenger seat hard and telling Cry to “slow the fuck down.”

When they come across a broken pipe that is continually gushing out water one day, they make the best of it by not only refilling all their bottles and containers, but also using it to wash every inch of poor, battered and dirty old Bluey until she shines under the sun. They also get into an inevitable water fight during the car wash at the same time.

That late evening, Cry wakes Pewdie up in the middle of the night and invites him outside. Pewdie is irritable at first because he gets tired driving for hours and it had taken him a while to find a place secluded enough for the car to rest for the night. Cry rolls his eyes at his complaints and motions for him to sit on the hood of the car.

“Look up,” is what he says when he settles next to him, and Pewdie does.

The night sky is littered with a million twinkling stars and they shine so bright now that the world has literally descended into darkness. He thinks he’s never seen anything so big and so beautiful in such a long time.

He doesn’t know how long they sit there together, gazing up at the glittering sky, but when he comes back down to earth, he mutters sheepishly, “This is pretty cheesy.” Because Cry waking him up just to let him witness this magnificent sight _is_ pretty cheesy. It’s also a little bit romantic.

“It’s one of the few things in the world that hasn’t changed,” Cry murmurs beside him. “And they’re beautiful, aren’t they? The stars? So, yeah. Of course this is pretty cheesy.”

During the day, they spend most of the time talking, sharing with each other what they know about surviving a zombie apocalypse, discussing new tactics on better ways to either sneak past the undead or how to scavenge the most useful items. Sometimes, when they’re not talking about something zombie-related, they would recall the videos they once made for their Youtube channels, laughing over the stupid things they did or reminisce on the kinds of videogames they played. The good thing about it is that it’s easy to talk about these things with each other because it doesn’t get old.

There is one thing that Cry never talks about, no matter how many times Pewdie tries to bring it up. Even when it does get brought up, Cry avoids mentioning anything further about it and lets the topic die naturally in the conversation. Pewdie notices it whenever he speaks about his family back home in Sweden, about Marzia or Maya. He notices it when he tries to ask Cry about his own family but the subject is always cut off, sometimes by a sudden change in topic or when Cry interrupts him with an announcement about the state of their supplies.

It’s puzzling how Cry suddenly becomes guarded and shut off when their conversation turns to something related to their past lives – that is, their _real_ lives when they are not called Pewdiepie and Cryaotic. To Pewdie, it’s one of the ways he uses to cope with the world now because it helps him believe that the people he misses are safe out there and are waiting for him to come home. He misses them dearly, regrets that he had taken them for granted all along, so he uses the memory of them to keep him going. It’s one of the reasons why he openly talks about them. He just doesn’t understand why this isn’t the case for Cry.

Pewdie doesn’t know what happened to Cry’s family when this hell began a couple of months ago. Cry has yet to mention what happened to him in detail in the three weeks before their reunion. What Pewdie has done to satisfy his own curiosity about the matter is to merely form speculations.

And then that day arrives, when the opportunity to talk about their past lives comes up, and Pewdie decides to take it because they’re both in a good mood and Cry has been laughing hard at something he’d said for the past seven minutes. It’s also one of those days when he lets Cry drive for a while. He thinks that maybe he can catch him off-guard this time.

“You never told me exactly what happened to you when this all started,” Pewdie begins casually. At once, he catches the changing expression on Cry’s face, notices how quickly the merriment slips out of his features. “I was at the airport, waiting for my flight and I had time to I call Marzia on the way there to tell her I was going to miss my plane. I got through to Ken after I got Bluey and drove out of the city. What about you? Did you get through to anyone?”

It’s most direct thing he’s said about the subject yet and Cry’s response to this is a tense silence that even Pewdie can feel in the car. He notices that Cry has recoiled into his seat, his focus turned towards the road ahead.

“You didn’t get through to anyone?” Pewdie says. “Did you try to find them? Your family or your friends? Search for them at the last place you expected them to be?”

There is more silence filled with tension from the driver’s seat. Cry may have escaped this talk one too many times before with the use of interruptions and clever diversions, but not right now. Pewdie has sought him out, forced him to confront this subject and he can see that Cry is struggling to find a way out.

“It’s okay, man,” Pewdie coaxes gently, thinking that this direct approach may be freaking him out. “I mean, it’s about time we talk about this, right? It was going to happen eventually. I got to be honest with you. I’ve been wondering about this for a while. Did something happen… to your family? Is that why you don’t talk about them?”

“No,” it’s the first time Cry speaks. His voice is hoarse, his words sound forced, and the stubborn reluctance to pursue this topic is prominent on his face – from the furrow in his eyebrows to the downturn in his mouth. He starts to grip the steering wheel hard with his fingers.

“No?” Pewdie echoes because the answer alone doesn’t tell him much. He lets the silence between them stretch and when Cry seems determined not to answer him, he sighs and resumes, “‘No’ as in ‘something _didn’t_ happen to your family’? If that’s the case, then maybe they’re safe. Maybe they escaped just in time, like we did. I mean, we got through okay, right? Maybe _they_ did, too.”

Pewdie becomes bewildered when the reassurance doesn’t move Cry at all.

“You’re worried you don’t know what happened to them?” he guesses.

“Is it that you feel guilty because you haven’t found them yet?” he tries again after failing to coax so much as a noise out of the other.

“Why won’t you talk about your own family?” he says impatiently this time. “Why won’t you talk about your own life? Why don’t you say something? _Anything_?” He wishes they could stop the car so that he can make Cry _look_ at him because the silence that he’s receiving is beginning to unnerve him. It is like talking to a brick wall. Eventually, you just want to smash it just to get some sort of response.

“ _Really_ , Cry? This is–” This is ridiculous, what they’re doing now. He didn’t intend for this to happen, didn’t expect their initial good mood to melt into the boiling pot they are standing in now. What started as a simple ploy to take advantage of Cry’s good mood in order to get him to talk has turned into a battle of wills. He finds himself in the middle of a crisis of whether to continue pursuing this or drop it entirely because clearly, Cry does _not_ want to talk about this. That much he knows already and really, it isn’t his place to pry further into the details of Cry’s life.

But _this_ , right now, this stubborn muteness is fucking ridiculous, it’s frustrating, it’s downright childish, and for one mad second, Pewdie thinks that Cry is starting to become another inanimate object in his car that needs to be given a voice just so he doesn’t go crazy from the silence.

And then he begins to go too far.

“Could it be that you just don’t want to think about what happened to them?” Pewdie says, or rather he _sneers_ it because if the gentle approach isn’t working, he will try mocking, he will try light-hearted banter, he will try something _else_ if he can. He just wants Cry to say something. “You don’t want to entertain the idea that maybe they _didn’t_ make it? Maybe they got caught on the way. That’s why they couldn’t make it back. That’s why you didn’t get to see them.”

He keeps his eyes on Cry when he says all this, wants to see if his words can stir something out of him. But Cry remains stuck in stony silence, his expression carefully blank as he continues to focus on the road ahead as he drives.

“Maybe you _did_ spend those three weeks looking for them,” Pewdie rambles on. “But you couldn’t find any clues as to where they’d gone so you gave up. Is that it then? The reason why you don’t want to talk about this? Is it because you _gave_ up?” He doesn’t know if what he says may be the truth or something close to it. He’s just bullshitting now, merely voicing out his speculations unless Cry intervenes and tells him that everything he says is wrong.

_You should stop, Pewdie._ He isn’t sure if it’s Map or GPS or Torchy who is warning him to drop the subject. He isn’t even sure if _he’s_ the one who is telling himself that. He can’t stop, he can’t seem to stop himself from speaking. Something is boiling in his chest, growing all the more intense as Cry continues to look forward, refusing to look at him and there’s just nothing happening and– goddamn it, Pewdie doesn’t even know if Cry is even _listening_ to him, the bastard.

“Or maybe it’s something else,” he gnashes out, becoming increasingly frustrated at the continued lack of response. “Maybe you _did_ find them. But it was too late to save them.” He sees Cry’s back tense a little. _Oh_ , was he actually listening all this time then? What would it take to get Cry to make a sound? “Maybe you’re guilty because you couldn’t save them. Is that it? Tell me I’m wrong, Cry.” God, he needs to stop. Why can’t he stop?

“Stop being such a wuss,” Pewdie begins taunting, his voice growing louder. “This is about your family. Why are you so scared of talking about them?” He shouldn’t do this. It’s unfair to Cry, who is breathing hard now, who is gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles have turned white, who is barely blinking as he stares determinedly at the road before them. But the _silence_. The silence just continues to make Pewdie even more aggravated.

“Goddamn it, Cry,” he almost barks it out, throwing himself back in his seat in frustration. “Man up and tell me what the fuck is _wrong_ with you–”

Then his gaze falls on the road ahead – and he spots a zombie there in the middle of the road, a small thing like a child that’s not so easily seen and it just lingers there in a daze, baking and decomposing in the sun.

And they are hurtling straight towards it.

“Cry,” he calls in alarm, glancing over at the other and Cry is still staring straight ahead but his eyes are glazed over. He’s not seeing anything. He doesn’t _see_ what they’re driving towards.

“ _Cry_!” Pewdie yells sharply.

“What–?” Cry utters, snapping out of his trance, and he sees the zombie child standing in their way and startles in surprise, jerking the car to the side by reflex.

The next thing they know, their world outside becomes a blur of colours and suddenly, they’re no longer driving on smooth tarmac but on bumpy and uneven ground, kicking up dirt and dust, and Pewdie is screaming for Cry to stop the car and Cry is screaming for Pewdie to shut up as he tries in vain to keep the wheel steady while stamping his foot hard on the brakes.

The car slams into an unseen bump, the impact jerking them against their seatbelts, and they sail into the air for a second before they’re plunging downwards into a steep ditch and something explodes into their faces, turning everything in their visions white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback - comments or kudos alike - are always appreciated. They tell me that yes, I am writing something you all like and enjoy reading. So thanks in advance.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thanks to suikalopolis for helping me fix this chapter up and make it sound a lot more realistic.
> 
> Also much appreciation for the kudos for last chapter.
> 
> So this is when it gets good and then it gets bad and then it gets good again. Kind of.
> 
> Feel free to pause and refill your mug of tea anytime because you've got this 10,242-word monster chapter to conquer, dear readers.
> 
> Do sit back, imagine, and enjoy.

**05.**

When Cry opens his eyes, he finds an airbag cushioning his face. The world around him slowly comes back to focus and there’s a high pitched ringing in his ears. His head feels awfully heavy, like it is threatening to fall off of his neck. He also finds his glasses jabbing into his face, the seatbelt strap digging into his chest, and he’s hanging from his seat at an almost vertical angle. That’s when it hits him.

That’s it, the _car_ , he suddenly recalls. He’d lost control of the car and they’d swerved off the road and crashed down here. He feels numb from the shock yet his thoughts come to taunt him – how ironic it is, Cry thinks, that karma decides to reward him with a ditch to die in. It’s over now. This is it. He wants to rest, wants to close his eyes and let the darkness take him. Death is coming for him at any moment.

Then he hears Pewdie’s voice, desperately calling his name from the passenger seat, “Cry! Talk to me, Cry! _Cry_!”

Cry groans into his airbag in response and checks whether his limbs are still working fine and that he can move his hands. Although nothing seems to be broken, when he tries to shift his legs, he finds that he can’t move the one nearest to his door. Something seems to be pressing onto it hard.

He doesn’t even realise that Pewdie has been blabbering uncontrollably for the last minute until he hears his name again.

“–Thank fuck you’re alive, Cry,” Pewdie is saying quickly in relief. “I thought you might have gotten the worse of it but you’re fine now, right? Are you hurt? Tell me you’re not hurt. Please say something, Cry. Can you say my name? Please say my name and tell me you’re okay.”

“Pewds,” Cry gasps out, and he pulls his heavy head back from the cushioning airbag to see the state of the car.

The first thing he sees is the windshield, still intact, and beyond that, the hood of the car, which has been popped open and crumpled inwards from its collision into the ground. The car had plummeted nose-first into a dirt ditch at an almost 70 degrees angle. There seems to be nothing else inside the car which has been affected by the crash except the cracked rear-view mirror. Cry turns his head to see that Pewdie, too, is hanging from his own seat, the seatbelt strapped around him being the only thing that’s stopping him from falling out of it.

Pewdie looks mostly unhurt but his face is pale with shock. When he sees Cry emerge from the airbag, he brightens with relief. 

“You’re okay,” he says breathlessly. “We’ve got to get out of here. Can you reach the door? Can you open it?”

Cry turns his head to the other side, letting the deployed airbag pillow his heavy head once more, and tries to reach for the door. His fingers tug at the door handle but he cannot summon enough strength to pull it back far enough to unclasp the door’s lock.

“…Can you do it, Cry?” comes Pewdie’s voice, sounding increasingly agitated. “Can you reach it? Can you open it? Can you do it?”

“Pewds,” Cry grits out irritably because Pewdie needs to stop talking now. His voice and his strangely repetitive words are making his head hurt and it doesn’t help that his ears are still ringing that annoying high-pitched _ping_.

“Cry, Cry, we need to get out of here,” Pewdie continues to babble from the passenger seat. “We’ve got to open the door first. You need to open the door first, don’t undo your seatbelt yet–”

“ _Pewds_ ,” Cry pushes the airbag roughly away, tugging the whole thing off him and letting it crumple against the windshield. When he shoots an irritated glare over at Pewdie’s direction, he realises that Pewdie’s babbling is just the beginning of a panic attack.

“You’re not hurt, right?” Pewdie says quickly and his breathing is coming out in gasps, in pants. “We’re gonna be okay, Cry. We’ll be fine. We need to get out. We’ve got to get–” he suddenly cuts short and begins to hyperventilate, his chest rising and falling with every rapid, ragged breath he takes. His face is beginning to slowly turn red.

“Oh shit,” Cry wants to get over there and stop him but he’s held back by his seatbelt and whatever it is that’s clamping his leg down. He vaguely motions for Pewdie’s attention with a flailing hand and when he fails to catch his eye, Cry reaches across the space between them and grabs onto his forearm, squeezing it. 

“Look at me,” says Cry frantically. “Look at me, Pewds. You’re panicking, you’re _panicking_. You need to calm the fuck _down_.”

He’s relieved when Pewdie’s eyes meet his, when he reaches up and wraps his hand around Cry’s own forearm. This assurance is short-lived though because Cry can feel the other shaking uncontrollably underneath his fingers. 

“Breathe slowly,” Cry tells him, fighting to keep his voice and his composure calm. The last thing he wants right now is for Pewdie to pass out. “Keep your eyes on me. Now breathe _slowly_. Deep breaths, in and out. Come on. You can do it. In and out. Just follow what I’m doing. Breathe like I do.”

Pewdie follows his instructions, keeping his gaze on him as he struggles to steady his frighteningly heavy, ragged breathing. They keep at it for several minutes, holding onto each other for support as Cry reassures him, coaxes Pewdie to breathe as slowly as he is. After what seems like ten minutes of them staring at each other and drawing long synchronized breaths, Pewdie finally calms down and regains his composure. Cry slowly lets go of his arm.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” Cry asks, wishing he isn’t sitting in this angle because it’s scrambling his sense of balance and his brain doesn’t know which way is the right way up. He feels an urge to release himself from his restraining seatbelt so he can stand upright again – and that’s when he suddenly remembers his leg, the one that’s trapped under the seat, and he realises with horror that it’s frighteningly _numb_ right now, he can’t feel anything, he knows that it’s there but he can’t feel his toes, why is that, is it still even there unless… unless something _happened_ to it oh god something must’ve happened to it– 

“I’m fine,” Pewdie’s voice, a little groggy but sounding sober, pulls him out of his panicked thoughts. Cry looks over and sees the other pushing his hair out of his face. And then, “We need to get out of here, Cry,” he says again. 

“Yeah…” Cry says weakly and he’s scared again, scared about his leg and he doesn’t know how to tell Pewdie about this. “Can you open _your_ door?” Cry asks instead, motioning towards the passenger door on Pewdie’s side. “I can’t reach mine.”

He watches as Pewdie extends his arm and his fingers can just about curl under the door handle. After giving it a couple of tugs, it finally releases the latch and Pewdie brings his leg up, clumsily kicks the door and it swings open with a _creak_ and then there’s wonderful fresh air rushing into the car, bringing with it the warm sunlight and a cool breeze which make them both pause to breathe it all in.

Pewdie then curls his arm around his headrest, plants his feet onto the dashboard and undoes his seatbelt. The straps release him but its sudden, snapping momentum throws his balance off, leaving him stumbling unsteadily on his feet before he tilts and falls against the door frame, his head hitting it lightly with a dull _thud_.

 _Pewds_! Cry wants to call out but is stopped when the whole car shakes from the impact.

“I-I’m okay,” Pewdie reassures him, noticing Cry’s look of panic. He pushes himself onto his feet, finding some purchase on top of the glove compartment and tries not to sway on the spot. Cry can see that he’s still trying to recover from his panic attack.

“Hang in there, Cry,” Pewdie says shakily, carefully picking his way on the dashboard to get to him with one hand bracing against the wall of the car. “I’m going to try and open your door for you. Just sit tight.”

The car groans as Pewdie moves across the dashboard and for one terrifying second, the whole thing shifts an inch, making Cry gasp and Pewdie freeze in his tracks. Suddenly, everything seems unstable to Cry and he has a horrible vision of the car flipping over and crushing them both under its weight. When Pewdie takes a cautious step forward, Cry whimpers out, “Don’t–”

“It’s okay,” Pewdie cuts in, letting in a deep breath and continues to inch closer to the driver’s seat, using anything and everything he can reach as a support. “Just don’t move. I’ll get you out.”

It’s terribly cramped in the car and there is not a lot of space to move in. At one point, Pewdie’s unsteady movements make him trip over the protruding gear stick and Cry can’t help but yelp angrily when the other man’s elbow knocks into his jaw. Finally, when Pewdie gains a somewhat secure footing, he leans one arm across Cry’s chest so that he can reach the door handle on the other side.

“Can’t reach,” Pewdie gasps, shifting even closer until he’s almost on top of Cry. Cry isn’t sure if this close proximity is comforting or making him agitated even more. “Just a bit further.” 

He sees Pewdie’s fingers grasp the handle of the door before pulling it. Pewdie then shoots Cry an apologetic look, hooks an arm over his headrest, braces a hand on the ceiling and swings a kick towards the door. 

The whole car gives another worrying shudder at the impact and Cry really wants to tell him to stop because – what if the car _tilts_ , what if it falls over and they get crushed, what if–? But Pewdie kicks even harder at the door again, the sound making Cry flinch, but the door doesn’t even budge.

“It’s jammed,” Pewdie mutters, turning his head to face Cry. They’re so close to each other that Cry can see the anxiety in Pewdie’s blue eyes, can see the faint scar across his eyebrow from their first raid together. “Cry, you’re gonna have to come out from my side.”

“I can’t,” Cry reveals regretfully, suddenly feeling sick. “My leg is stuck. I can’t move it.”

Something changes in Pewdie’s face and Cry recognises the mixture of fear and dread in his features. After a second or two, Pewdie’s voice comes out shaky as he asks, “Oh-okay, okay. Is it – Is it broken?”

“I don’t know,” Cry answers truthfully, faintly. “I don’t know. But it feels a bit numb.”

Pewdie lays a reassuring hand on his shoulder, having recognised Cry’s own dread. “Hang in there, Cry. I’ll – I’ll get you out. It’s gonna be okay.”

He backs away a little and crouches on the floor, peering through the gear stick and into the gloom to roughly discern whatever it is that’s keeping Cry’s leg trapped. A few seconds later, Pewdie pulls himself up. “The door’s been dented in,” he explains a little worriedly. “That could explain why it can’t open and also why your leg is stuck. I think Bluey hit something and a bit of her got crushed in.” 

_Crushed_ –? Cry tries very, _very_ hard to fight off the images of a crushed, bloody leg that is attached to his body. “Is it really bad…?” he dares to ask in bated breath and finds that his voice has gone high-pitched all of a sudden.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” Pewdie informs. “But I don’t know. Just… just hang in there, Cry, okay? I’ll find a way to get you out.”

“Pewds–” Cry says quietly. If there’s a possibility that his leg turns out to be really bad, if it turns out that there’s no way to get Cry out of this wreckage, then Pewdie should just–

“I’m _not_ leaving you, Cry,” says Pewdie firmly, having guessed his thoughts. “I’ll get you out.”

The assertion, spoken so resolutely, warms something in Cry’s heart, pushing away the fear he feels for his possible fate. He decides that he doesn’t want to give up just yet, doesn’t want to get left behind and he certainly does not want to die in a fucking _ditch_ like this.

Pewdie is already busy examining his seat and its surrounding items, looking for a possible solution to their problem. When he then straightens up again, he says, “I don’t think we can pull you out from this end. It’s got to be upwards. We’ve got to pull you up and _out_.” Then he holds up one finger and raises it into the air.

Cry’s eyes follow the direction of his finger and he turns his head to see the backseat and its window showing the view of the grey sky outside. That’s when Cry realises that the back of their Ford Fiesta car is concave shaped, meaning that there’s easy access between the back seat and the trunk from the inside of the car. If they just open the trunk door and lower the back seats, this will provide them with an alternative exit to escape through. _We’ve got to pull you up and_ out, Pewdie’s words remind him.

 _Oh my god_ , Cry thinks, amazed by Pewdie’s quick thinking. _Genius Pewds strikes again_.

Unable to do much, Cry waits and watches Pewdie squeeze through the space between their seats and climb up to the backseat behind him. He watches from the cracked rear-view mirror as Pewdie picks up and tosses out some of their things through the opened passenger door, including the battered, doggy-eared road map. When he climbs back down to the front, he’s sweating from the exertion and after offering another quick assurance to Cry, he finally makes his way towards the open door.

“Be careful,” Cry says quietly and watches Pewdie’s form slip out of the open car door and drop onto the ground outside. 

The wait is nerve-wracking for Cry who realises that he is now alone in the car, trapped in its wreckage. All he can do as he sits, strapped to his seat, is listen carefully to the sounds that are happening outside, of Pewdie’s footsteps scraping the ground, scratching the dirt as he climbs up the slope of the ditch. He’s relieved when he is able to see Pewdie’s reflection from the cracked rear-view window as he arrives at the top of the slope and stands over the back window of the trunk. When Pewdie notices him staring in the mirror, he smiles a little and gives an awkward wave.

A few seconds later, Cry hears the trunk pop open behind him and sunlight pours into the car, lightening up its interior. He lets out a long sigh from his seat, unable to comprehend why he feels relieved by the warm golden rays.

There are more noises coming from the trunk and from what Cry can see from the rear-view mirror, it looks like Pewdie is clearing out everything they have in that spacious back compartment, tossing them down into the ditch. He catches glimpses their backpacks, their cans of food, his shovel – all of which sail into the air only to drop to the bottom. Once Pewdie finishes, he lowers himself into the trunk and begins to recline the backseats. He doesn’t speak while he works and it’s a strange sight to behold. Cry has never seen Pewdie look so focused and so concentrated while performing a task like this before.

“Okay,” Pewdie says once he finishes. “Push your seat as far back as you can and lie down, Cry.”

Cry does, pulling the seat lever up and pushing the backrest until he is almost lying down. Then Pewdie lowers himself once more into the car, taking his time to find a footing which can support his whole weight until he ends up hovering above Cry’s reclined seat. It’s such an awkward position to be in because Cry finds himself lying in between Pewdie’s legs. One of Pewdie’s feet is planted firmly on the back of the upright passenger seat across from him, while his other rests on the wall somewhere near his ear. Before Cry has time to further think about their weird positioning, he suddenly feels a pair of warm arms slip under his armpits in a secure grip.

“I’ve got you,” Pewdie’s voice sounds out from somewhere above his head. He sounds a little out of breath and Cry doesn’t blame him for the amount of energy he must have used just to climb back inside the car without falling. “You need to undo your seatbelt. Then I’ll pull your leg out… It’s gonna be okay, Cry.”

At once, a spike of fear settles back in his chest. He feels afraid once more, afraid of what they might see if they managed to pull his leg free. He manages to nod dumbly in response, not trusting himself to speak, and unclasps his seatbelt.

On either side of him, he feels the muscles in Pewdie’s legs tense as the latter digs his feet into its supports and begins to push himself upwards. Cry feels himself being lifted by the grip under his arms but his ascent is cut short by his trapped leg. Pewdie tugs him upwards again, harder this time, but like the door in the driver’s side, Cry’s leg doesn’t so much as budge. It occurs to Cry then that he still has one leg that’s free so he plants his foot onto the dashboard, braces his hands against whatever he can reach as support, and he pushes himself up at the same time when Pewdie pulls.

They keep at it for a while, coordinating their movements of pushing and pulling upwards to reach the open trunk door, and it’s exhausting for Cry whose hope for being saved slowly dwindles the more they tug at his trapped leg only to result in nothing happening. He’s starting to believe that the only way to get him out would probably be to cut the car open with some heavy machinery that is obviously not at their disposal. The only thing that stops him from fully giving up is because of Pewdie, who continues to pull him upwards with all his might and doesn’t look like he’s showing any signs of stopping.

Finally, when Pewdie gives a particularly hard yank, growling at the exertion, Cry feels his trapped leg stir and slide upwards and he utters an exclamation of surprise.

“It’s working?” Pewdie speaks for the first time in how many minutes and Cry feels him adjusting his grip under his arms, his breathing hard and slow. “Okay, okay, this is it, Cry. When I pull, you push hard, okay? Here we go. One, two…” and Cry pushes his free leg down on the dashboard with as much strength as he can, uses his arms to hoist himself upwards and the length of his body protests at the forced struggle, and then he feels his trapped leg slide again and yes, fuck _yes_ , it’s working, he’s moving a little, there it goes, his knee just got free from whatever is keeping it stuck there, _yes_ they need to keep doing this, just keep pushing hard, Cry, because it’s fucking _working_ right now. He feels Pewdie’s shoe bump into the side of his head from where he digs his foot onto the shoulder of his seat and it’s shaking at the amount of force he’s using to heave them upwards–

And then his leg _slides_ free and he falls backwards onto Pewdie and he hears him squawk behind him as the back of his head knocks into the latter’s face. He doesn’t notice this immediately though because the instant his leg is released from its prison, it becomes assaulted by a vicious stream of pins and needles which gush up and down the length of the limb, and Cry yelps in pain at the sudden sensation.

He manages to look at his freed leg for a second and it’s not crushed at all, it looks _fine_ , but he doesn’t have time to think further on this because Pewdie begins to pull him upwards again and this time, his whole body follows. He helps with the effort, grasping at any support he can reach and uses it to haul them both up, his numb leg dragging under him. It’s slow work and he doesn’t know how long they keep at it but the next thing he knows, they’re climbing out of the trunk and into sunlight, into freedom, and with one final tug, they’re out. He feels Pewdie’s body loosening against him, exhausted from the overexertion, and then they’re both tumbling down the slope, rolling to a stop at the bottom of the ditch.

Cry thinks he might have blacked out for a bit but when he returns to consciousness, he’s gasping for breath, his chest heaving up and down. His whole body feels sore and he doesn’t want to move. He’s never felt so tired like this before, lying eagle-spread on the ground, staring up at the cloudy skies – and they are beautiful skies too. The clouds are fluffy with a tinge of grey and the sun’s right over there and it’ll soon begin to descend…

Something grabs onto his foot and a pair of hands are hurriedly pushing up the hem of his pant leg. Cry starts, scrambling up into a sitting position and is ready to kick at whatever it is that has grabbed him, but stops struggling when he finds Pewdie there, sliding up the cloth so he can examine his leg. It’s uninjured – thank _god_ – and it doesn’t look broken or fractured, but there is a massive bruise that’s swelling and turning blue spreading down the length of his shin. Pewdie is carefully prodding it, lightly squeezing it as he thoroughly checks for broken bones. Cry tries hard not flinch at the pain but focuses instead on Pewdie’s face, on his expression which is still fixed in concentration. It’s only when Pewdie is satisfied with his find that the contours in his features loosen and he lets go of Cry’s leg and sits back, sighing deeply in relief.

“It’s not broken,” is what he gasps out, throwing his head back. Cry examines his own leg, which still hurts from the pins and needles and the bruise, and tries to wiggle his toes in his shoe. Then he, too, sits back on the heels of his hands and breathes.

They sit together side by side and eventually realise that they’re both looking at the remains of the blue Ford Fiesta. It’s an incredible sight to see something so familiar as their car in this state, its body erected in the air at an almost vertical angle, its nose crumpled inwards by the uncontrollable dive into the ditch, the trunk door wide open in the back. It’s unreal to think that moments ago they were both trapped inside, that they had spent a long time trying to climb out of it, that Cry had been strapped into his seat and couldn’t move because his leg had been stuck. It’s amazing to realise that they’d gotten away from this accident unscathed once more. Just how long will their luck continue to last like this?

As Cry stares in fascination at their ruined car, he gradually becomes aware of Pewdie breathing beside him, feels the comforting warmth radiating from his body, remembers the look of concentration on his face when they’d struggled to climb up to reach the sunlight and feels something stir within his chest. It is hard to describe but he knows it’s a powerful feeling, something like relief and gratitude and respect directed towards the other man. He feels indebted to Pewdie for his effort and his show of perseverance, feels strangely closer to him now after their combined effort to escape the wreckage of the car together. He also feels incredibly grateful that Pewdie refused leave him behind.

At this realisation, Cry feels a sudden urge to take Pewdie’s hand. He wants to say thank you for not giving up on him, for not wanting to leave him behind, for saving his life – but he doesn’t. He can’t find the right words yet. So he curls his hand that’s nearest to Pewdie’s into a fist to stop himself from reaching out. 

There is a look of grave sadness on Pewdie’s face when Cry shoots a glance over at him. The other man is staring silently up at their ruined car, at Bluey, and Cry imagines him mourning silently for it in his head and instantly feels regret for having caused this. How can he not see anything on the road? Why was he so caught up in his thoughts – caught up in blocking Pewdie’s voice and his words out of his head that he had shut himself off of everything else and didn’t see what he was driving towards? 

Cry didn’t just lose them their mode of transportation, he lost them their _home_ for the past month. He feels like the worst person in the world.

After two minutes of stillness, Cry awkwardly says, “We can’t stay here too long. The sound of the crash could’ve attracted attention.”

Pewdie sighs deeply beside him and gets up, taking a couple of steps forward before he places his hand onto the body of car. “You’ve been a noble steed,” he says in a theatrical voice even though Cry knows he genuinely means everything he says. “Thanks for looking after us, Bluey.”

For a moment, Cry feels whatever it is that Pewdie is feeling, and hangs his head in shame.

“Come on,” says Pewdie after he turns away from the car. His voice is light and back to its usual tenor. “Ah, you should just chill around for a bit,” he recommends, gazing down at the bruise that’s swelling on Cry’s still exposed shin. Embarrassed by the attention, Cry hurriedly pushes his pant leg back down and tries to get up.

“Whoa, whoa, stay put, will you,” Pewdie waves him down. “Just don’t move for a second. I’ll go gather up our stuff and we get the heck out of here.”

Cry silently watches Pewdie collect the things that he had thrown out of the car which lay scattered all around them. Although some of their things had to be left behind, Pewdie packs whatever he can into their two backpacks and when he is done, he walks over to Cry to hand him his bag and his shovel. In addition, he plops the rainbow duck cap on top of his head and steps back, looking satisfied. Cry happened to catch a glimpse of the inside of Pewdie’s jacket when the other man had leaned down and he sees the road map stuffed hurriedly into the inner pocket. He tries not to burst into giggles as he pushes himself up to his feet.

And his stupid, bruised leg collapses underneath him and Pewdie is suddenly there, pulling Cry’s arm around his shoulders and steadying him on his feet.

“I can walk,” Cry says stubbornly even though his bruised leg is still tingling with pins and needles.

“Sure you can,” says Pewdie sarcastically. They’re close enough to each other again for Cry to see the impish twinkle in his eyes. “Just don’t slow me down, bro.”

“You suck,” Cry mutters and suddenly feels Pewdie freeze against him. He finds himself holding his breath as well.

In the distance, coming from over the slope of the ditch, they hear the faint sound of rustling footsteps and quiet moaning voices coming closer to them. Cry feels a flash of panic hit his chest. It seems the undead are already on their way here. 

Cry turns to meet Pewdie’s gaze and sees the suggestion in his eyes. He nods silently in agreement before Pewdie begins to help him walk, coaxes Cry to put down one step after the other. Cry tries hard to move fast as he limps his way forward while ignoring the burning sensation in his leg. Eventually, they make their way further down the length of the ditch, anywhere that is far away from the approaching zombies and the wrecked remains of their car.

 

Travelling by foot, Pewdie discovers, is very different compared to travelling by car. For one thing, it involves a lot of brisk walking, little rest and constant vigilance. It’s also a new kind of hell for him. 

It isn’t so bad on the first day after they’ve lost Bluey. Due to Cry’s bruised leg, their progress on foot had been slow so there were a lot of short breaks taken between their walks. This all changes though when they find a stream one morning. Deciding to rest, they spend a few hours by its bank where Cry sits on the edge and submerges his whole leg under the cool water to relieve the bruise. By the time he gets up, the swelling has gone down and he looks fit enough to walk and run. 

After that, Cry’s demeanour changes. He becomes focused on getting them to keep moving forward so they never stay in one place for too long. He brings their pace up a few notches and there’s no end to it, this moving on and on through fields and thin woods, searching aimlessly for an unknown destination. Pewdie has never had to put so much effort in walking for miles and miles without stopping before. He’s also never put so much effort walking for miles with a backpack full of stuff weighing him down as well. 

Unlike him, Cry quickly adapts himself to their new situation and it isn’t exactly surprising since Cry spent the first three weeks of this zombie hell travelling on foot after all. Because of this, Pewdie feels a little envious that the other is faring so much better than he is. He knows he’s extremely out of shape. His stamina is much shorter than Cry’s and he gets tired easily after at least an hour of nonstop brisk walking. It’s even worse when they’re climbing up the slope of a hill so they can reach higher ground. Although Cry struggles to scale his way upwards, his pace doesn’t so much waver. Pewdie, on the other hand, has to stop frequently after five steps to catch his breath and then scramble up the slope to reach Cry, who is already about ten feet above him.

Pewdie once asks Cry why they’re travelling so fast like this, why they aren’t allowed to stay at one place for more than two hours and Cry tells him it’s not safe, it’s never safe when you’re travelling on solid ground. It might have been easy to relax when you’re driving in a car, safe and secure within the walls of a moving vehicle, but once you’re back outside, you’re vulnerable, helpless, so it’s necessary to keep your guard up at all times.

Except Pewdie secretly thinks it’s unfair that they not only had to travel during the daytime, Cry makes them continue doing more of it at night. Even when they had Bluey back then, Pewdie made it a habit to stop the car once in a while to rest when it’s night time. 

Cry rarely sleeps when they’re travelling at night though. He only catches snatches of it, allows his eyes to rest for ten to twenty minutes before he’s up and moving again. This only happens when he tells Pewdie to keep watch while he naps. When it’s Pewdie’s turn to sleep, he thinks his body barely starts recovering energy before he is shaken awake by Cry two hours later with instructions that they should ready their flashlights and keep walking. 

What results from this, this constant tendency to keep vigilant of their surroundings at all times, whether it be night or day, naturally makes Pewdie rather irritable. And when he’s irritable, he tends to whine. A lot.

“You’re going too fast, Cry,” he complains when Cry is a couple of paces further than he is. “You’re going to end up leaving me behind.”

“Goddamn it, not another fucking hill. Why is this place so fucking hilly anyway?”

“Cry, we should stop for food. It’s been hours since our last meal.”

“I think I have a blister on my heel. Just give me a fucking minute, will you.”

“It’s so hot out here. Sun, go away and come back when we call you, geez.”

“Cry, do you even know where the fuck we’re going?”

One day, Pewdie irritably huffs out, “Can’t we just hotwire another car instead of just going on like this for days?” 

That’s when Cry decides to sarcastically reply, “What a good idea. Why don’t you go look for that car and I’ll just continue on my way? At least the reassurance might calm us both down.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pewdie says suspiciously.

“That’s _exactly_ what it’s supposed to mean,” Cry replies through a mutter, not turning around. Pewdie can’t see his expression thanks to the flat brim of his cap so he narrows his eyes into a glare and doesn’t say anything. He understands what Cry is hinting at, that Pewdie is complaining way too much about everything and Cry is getting tired of hearing it, and this is why he chooses not to argue. 

There are other days though when Cry’s sarcastic replies to Pewdie’s persistent whining blooms into all out bickering between the two of them.

“No, I don’t want to,” Pewdie says with a shake of his head. He’s tired of walking for hours and he just wants to sit down on this pretty comfortable boulder and rest his aching feet. But Cry isn’t having any of that and is telling him to keep moving.

“Pewds, get up from there and get going. We’re losing daylight,” Cry points out insistently.

“No point,” Pewdie says curtly. “We’ll still keep moving after dark anyway.”

“Just get up off that stupid rock. We have to keep going. God, can’t you just shut up and do it?” Cry huffs out in irritation, sounding impatient.

“Geez, why are you being so bossy all the time?” Pewdie asks.

“Bossy? Why are you so goddamn _noisy_ all the time?” Cry shoots back.

“I don’t know, man. Maybe because I’m so fucking tired and sleep-deprived.”

“And you think _I’m_ not either of those too?”

“Of _course_ not. If you were, you’d be complaining about this as much as I am.”

“Unlike you, Pewds. I have to tolerate this shit because you know why? It might save my life somehow.”

“What’s the harm in slowing down anyway? We’re not in a hurry to win some race, right? For the past three days, we haven’t even come across a single _zombie_.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to let our guard down.”

“I can’t even let my guard _up_ if I don’t get enough fucking rest, Cry.”

“If you want to rest, we’ll have to find a safe place that’s not out in the open. Here isn’t the most ideal place, you know.”

“How can this place not be safe? It’s quiet. There’s nothing around. If we hear noises, we’ll just run.”

“That’s not the point. Now, get off that rock and get over here.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Get _off_ the fucking rock.”

“Look, give me just a minute, a _second_ – to rest. Is that so fucking hard for you?”

Cry waves a dismissing hand in the air in exasperation, “You know what? Whatever, man. You win. Go and have your goddamn rest. You’re free to rest as long as you want.”

Pewdie fights back a satisfied grin at the defeated tone in Cry’s voice. Just as he settles back onto the boulder, he’s stunned when Cry turns and resumes walking towards the direction they are heading, leaving him behind. 

“Cry?” Pewdie calls uneasily when Cry doesn’t stop, moving farther away from him. “You’re not going to–” when Cry doesn’t turn around, raging irritation returns into Pewdie’s chest and he fights off the urge to scream at Cry’s retreating back. 

“Oh, oh _fine_. Is that what you want then?” he snaps, appalled by the other’s stubbornness. He cannot believe this. All he wants is to fucking rest for one minute and Cry just keeps walking away and he just _leaves_ like that and doesn’t _care_. Pewdie feels tempted to stay put and let Cry go ahead but he doesn’t want to be left alone like this, in the eerie wilderness, so he forces himself to get off the boulder and scamper after him. He’s never felt so annoyed by the other before in his life. They usually get along so well in the past even though they do fall into the occasional squabble about petty things, but it’s never serious enough to leave them in bad blood like this. 

When he catches up to Cry, he makes sure he walks behind him. His feet ache in protest, sending throbs of pain up his legs every time he puts pressure on them but he forces himself to keep moving. As he glares at the back of Cry’s head, he feels an urge to throw something at him but because he’s got nothing on him now, he hurls complaints into the air instead. Cry might have won this round but that doesn’t mean that Pewdie will stay quiet about how unfair this is either. 

“Oh don’t mind me,” Pewdie says sarcastically to Cry’s back, only because the other seems determined not to look around. “Let’s just keep walking until Pewdie’s feet fall off. We don’t need to rest. We’ve got to be somewhere anyway. And who the hell needs sleep? What sleep? Rest is for the weak. We don’t have to stop to eat either because it’s not like we’ve got basic needs anyway, right? Let’s just keep moving and if Pewdie dies from exhaustion, there’s no point in stopping. He’s just being melodramatic. Don’t mind him. Don’t mind him at all. Let’s just keep fucking moving, guys.”

And he keeps this up for another hour until the sun begins to sink in the horizon. By then, his movements begin to turn sluggish, his feet and his entire body just generally hurt all over and even his words are spent so he falls into silence. The irritation he feels for Cry continues to simmer in this chest though and Pewdie decides he’s not going to forgive Cry for not letting him rest. All throughout that long hour, Cry doesn’t turn around to check up on him.

They both remain in tense, begrudging silence as they pick their way through the terrain they are passing through while the sun gradually dips into the horizon beside them.

 

Cry usually tolerates Pewdie. They’ve known each other for years after all and having only recently started travelling together, gradually got to know their living habits. Cry knows Pewdie’s little annoying habits which he can’t help and he learns to tolerate those. He knows about Pewdie’s recent weird tendency to talk to inanimate objects and have them answer back to him with his own voice. He tolerates even that too. But sometimes, even _he_ has a limit. Ever since they started travelling on foot, it’s been one complaint after another and eventually, Pewdie’s grating voice scratches against the wall of Cry’s patience so often enough that it becomes a crack.

When Pewdie plops himself down on a boulder and refuses to get up, that’s when his patience runs out. He knows there’s no point in trying to argue with him and get him to do what he says because Pewdie can be as stubborn as he is. So he gives up because he really doesn’t care anymore, turns around and – for the first time, walks off.

It occurs to him that he’s overdoing it – him walking off and leaving Pewdie behind, because he’s never done this to him before, isn’t close enough to the other man that their bouts of bickering could result to him throwing everything down and leaving. He knows that Pewdie is as astonished as he is of his own behaviour because he catches the other’s stunned silence when he continues on walking. About a second later, Pewdie snaps out of that hesitation and begins to throw sarcastic remarks at his back.

An hour later, Pewdie’s complaints stop altogether and Cry can hear him silently trudging behind him. He still doesn’t want to turn around to look at him because Cry is still pissed at Pewdie so he forces himself to walk on. He does, however, consider finding a place for them to rest for the whole night because maybe he _has_ overreacted a little bit and feels a little guilty for being so inconsiderate towards Pewdie, seeing that the other man had pulled him out of their wrecked car.

They find a rickety, wooden bridge built above another small stream by the time the moon rises halfway up the clear night sky. Cry decides that they camp out here and goes to build a fire since it’s become cold. By the time he manages to kindle a flame out of a small pile of dried sticks and leaves, he finds Pewdie sitting a little away from him by the bank, his back facing him. He had taken off his shoes and socks, rolled up the legs of his pants and dipped both his feet into the cold water.

The begrudging silence that they’d fallen into for the past few hours had naturally brought with it an uneasy tension between them. Cry knows that this can’t go on if they are to continue travelling together and anyway, he isn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of a brooding Pewdie either. Eventually, they need to start communicating again but that can’t happen soon unless one of them becomes brave enough to break the silence.

Rummaging into his backpack, Cry takes out a can of spaghetti and a plastic fork, makes his way to the bank and plops down next to Pewdie, whose shoulders visibly tense in the moonlight. Cry is about to hand the two items he’d taken out to the other man as a sort of peace offering but stops when he notices his appearance for the first time in a few hours.

Pewdie wasn’t joking when he emphasized how much he needed rest. He looks _exhausted_ right now. His whole body seems slumped as if held down by a weight on his shoulders, his hair is a wild mess and his eyes, ringed by puffy pouches, stare blankly forward through drooping eyelids. When he moves his head a little, it’s done delicately, as if it is a heavy thing to lift. Instantly, Cry feels a pang of regret at his earlier cold dismissal of Pewdie’s weary state. How could he do such a thing to his own friend who had saved their lives not once but two times?

“So,” Cry begins awkwardly, playing with the can of spaghetti and fork on his lap. “How are you holding up?”

Pewdie gives a mock-thoughtful hum complete with look. “Oh, I’m doing absolutely _great_. Thanks for asking,” he says, the sarcasm obvious in his tone and Cry shifts uneasily at the biting tenor in the other’s voice. 

Geez, Cry thinks as he stares down at the can of spaghetti. I think I’ve screwed up, big time. How do you make up with someone after doing what you did, however small it is? All I did was get pissed and walk away and it’s so stupid of me to do that and now I just feel like the most terrible person because I didn’t consider how serious Pewds is about how tired he was. What do I say to make it up to him? What _is_ there to say? ‘Sorry I acted like a jackass?’ or ‘It was wrong of me to do what I did,’ or ‘I shouldn’t have walked away. I shouldn’t have left you alone like that.’ Or maybe, ‘Geez Pewds, if you’d stopped being fucking annoying for the past few days, then I wouldn’t have lost my patience with you and snapped like that.’

In the end, the words fail him because Cry doesn’t know which ones can work so he settles for the next best thing and that is through his actions. He doesn’t know if it will work but he hopes the gesture that he is going to show might convey how much Cry wants them to make up.

So he puts the can and fork onto the ground, pushes himself backwards and shifts sideways so he’s sitting behind the other man. Cry lifts up his fists hesitantly, letting them hover over the surface of Pewdie’s back before he lowers them and begins to rhythmically pound the other man’s shoulder blades.

Pewdie instantly reels back in surprise and twists around to stare at him. “What the hell are you doing?” he almost shrieks in bewilderment.

Cry feels himself flushing under Pewdie’s gaze and holds up his fists sheepishly. “I’m…” he says tentatively because he knows how awkward this looks to the both of them but he can’t think of anything else he can do. “I’m actually giving you a massage.” 

When Pewdie doesn’t move, he adds weakly, “I mean, you _are_ hurting now, right?”

He sees Pewdie’s eyebrow give an upwards twitch. “A _massage_?” Pewdie says in disbelief yet Cry thinks he faintly hears a note of amusement in his voice. “That doesn’t even feel like a massage to me. It just feels like you’re punching me in the back. Are you sure you’re not punching me in the back? Is this your idea of revenge?”

“I am _not_ punching you in the back,” Cry says firmly with a frown. “It’s obviously a type of massaging technique and you know it.”

“Well, it still feels like punching to me,” Pewdie remarks and then turns around so his back faces Cry once more. “If you’re going to massage my back, then you should do it the right way. Like squeezing the muscles, not punching them.”

“I wasn’t punching you,” Cry protests but Pewdie’s invitation for him to continue is surprising and Cry thinks it’s another step in the staircase he’s climbing that is leading up to their reconciliation. He cups his hands over Pewdie’s stiff shoulders and squeezes.

“ _Ow_!” Pewdie jerks under his hands and Cry sees the glare he shoots over his shoulder. “Geez, be gentle, will you. When I say squeeze, you squeeze gently. You do it in a circular motion too. And for fuck’s sake, do it properly.”

Look who’s the bossy one now, Cry thinks bitterly and tries kneading Pewdie’s shoulders gently and halts when Pewdie clicks his tongue and says, “What the hell is that? I can’t feel anything. Squeeze a little harder.”

“You told me not to squeeze too hard,” Cry can’t help but whine.

“That’s exactly what I said so – _ow_! Ouch, stop that, that hurts,” Pewdie screeches and – gosh, Pewdie’s voice, loud and resounding in the night, grates his ears. Cry tolerates it, loosens his grip and squeezes the other’s shoulders again. He continues kneading silently, trying to adjust the amount of pressure he puts onto those stiff muscles and when he thinks that he’s starting to get the hang of it, Pewdie suddenly pulls away, shrugging Cry’s hands off his shoulders and turns his head to look at him.

“You are really bad at this,” he comments with a hard, contemplative look and Cry doesn’t know what to make of it, whether Pewdie is insulting him or perhaps rejecting his pathetic attempt at reconciliation. Before Cry can provide a comeback with that, Pewdie shifts his whole body so that Cry is facing his side instead of his back. “Look, if you want to massage something, you should just massage my feet. They’re the ones that hurt like hell after all,” he points out and then lifts one of his legs up from the stream.

As rivulets of water roll off the length of Pewdie’s calf, Cry can see his bare foot in the moonlight, sees that the sole is red and sore and the skin of his heel had been rubbed raw. He winces at the sight and Pewdie notices it. A sneering smile stretches across the latter’s lips, “That’s what you get, Cry, for making me walk without stopping. I told you already how much I needed a minute to rest, didn’t I?” 

Dammit, Cry feels even more terrible now. He can already imagine the amount of pain Pewdie must have felt every time he puts his foot down when he walks. 

“Oh, ‘carry on _walking_ , Pewds,’” Pewdie says in a deep voice that’s supposed to imitate Cry’s own. He’s watching Cry carefully as he speaks. “‘You’re so _slow_ , Pewds,’ you said. ‘Don’t stop for _nothing_ , Pewds.’ ‘If you don’t keep walking, I’m going to leave you _behind_ , Pewds.’ ‘If you don’t catch up, you’ll get jumped on by a _zombie_ , Pewds, and I won’t be there to save you–’”

“I didn’t even say any of those things,” Cry can’t help but point out feebly and Pewdie is still looking at him and there’s something hidden in his face, in the sneering quality of his smile. It’s not bitterness directed towards him, not anymore anyway. It looks more like quiet amusement.

“Oh, but you were _thinking_ it,” says Pewdie accusingly but it sounds a little over exaggerated. “I can hear your thoughts from behind you, Cry. Did you know that it’s one of my secret talents? You think you know everything about me? Well, you’ve got another thing coming. Now shut up and massage my feet, you little bitch.”

Cry reels back with disgust when Pewdie suddenly thrusts his still soaking wet foot into his face, making a few droplets of water splatter onto the lens of his glasses. He smacks the foot away with the back of his hand by reflex and says, “Fuck no.”

“Are you questioning me, boy?” Pewdie demands loudly in one of his deep and gruff dramatic voices as he pushes his foot against the back of Cry’s hand. His eyes, Cry finally realises, have a mischievous, impish twinkle in them and damn it, god _damn_ it– Pewdie has been fucking with him all along.

“You _suck_ , Pewds,” Cry pushes the foot away, much more gently this time while fighting the warmth that is creeping up the sides of his face. He feels ashamed that Pewdie seemed to have caught him off-guard, for leading him on a guilt trip like this.

Pewdie’s toes wiggle in the air between them, “I’m waiting, Cry. I want my massage.”

“No,” says Cry. His stupid cheeks are burning. Once again, he tries to push Pewdie’s foot away from his face but meets resistance at the other end. 

“No?” Pewdie says loudly in mock-disbelief and wiggles his toes again. 

“ _No_ ,” Cry says a little more firmly, and somehow everything is suddenly funny around him. There’s a tickling feeling in his stomach, threatening to burst out of his chest but he fights it down and concentrates on pushing Pewdie’s stupid foot out of his face. 

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Pewdie thunders and begins to push his foot against Cry’s resisting hand. “I order you to give me my massage!”

“Get off me, Pewds,” Cry says – or rather, he tries to say but his words come out shaky from the effort of trying to control himself. A lone giggle escapes his lips. He is _not_ going to laugh. Pewdie’s being an asshole and he made him feel stupid and Cry is so not going to forgive him for doing that to him. No fucking way.

“You may be resisting me now,” says Pewdie in another one of his voices. He thankfully lowers his foot to the ground only because he’s too tired of lifting it up. “But deep down, you know you want to do it. Don’t you, Cry? Just admit it. It’ll make it easier for the both of us. It might even feel _good_.”

 _That’s so gross_ , Cry wants to tell him but he’s biting his lip, not daring to speak because he knows if he opens his mouth, he is going to die laughing. He’s also trying not to look at Pewdie, who is wiggling his eyebrows at him suggestively. Don’t laugh, he says to himself. Don’t fucking _laugh_. Don’t do it. And why the hell is this happening? Weren’t they supposed to be fighting? Weren’t they supposed to be pissed with each other? Wasn’t this supposed to be about how Cry became a heartless bitch and didn’t care about Pewdie’s wellbeing? Why has it suddenly turned into a game of ‘how long can Pewdie keep this up until Cry bursts out laughing?’

“I can see you want to say ‘no’,” Pewdie says dramatically again, his voice lowering into a seductive whisper. “But we both know what you’re really saying is ‘yes, Pewdie. I would _love_ to massage your feet.’”

It’s over. His control over himself breaks – and Cry positively _howls_ with laughter. This isn’t like the eruption of breathy, ticklish giggles that he’s widely known for, or the manly chuckles when something tickles his fancy or even his often sinister-sounding cackles when he’s feeling awfully gleeful. These are deep bellows of laughter which have emerged from within his chest and they are hard enough to push the air out of his lungs, hard enough to leave him breathless, hard enough to make him clutch his stomach, make him fall onto the grass, make his eyes sting with tears, his face hurt from the strain. 

And Pewdie, the smug bastard, is grinning widely down at him and Cry just hates his face right now so he reaches for the nearest thing – the can of spaghetti – and hurls it at Pewdie, who yelps and expertly dodges out of its way. They hear the can plop into the stream with a hollow splash.

“What the fuck was that for?” Pewdie screeches. He doesn’t look angry – not that Cry would give a fuck if he does – because he’s still grinning down at him, at Cry who is breathless with laughter and dying on the grass right now.

“Shut – up –” Cry tries to say and why is it so fucking hard to speak right now. Why is–

“Why – are you _laughing_ –?” he manages to gasp out between breaths and this is so important right now because he doesn’t understand why Pewdie is laughing as well and this is getting dangerous because Pewdie laughs like a fucking donkey and it’s the most fucking hilarious thing in the world _ever_ and–

Oh no. He can’t breathe, can’t catch his own breath. Black spots are beginning to form in front of his eyes. He needs to stop. Pewdie, stop fucking laughing because Cry can’t stop and why the hell is everything so funny right now and if Pewdie manages to kill him from making him laugh to death, Cry _swears_ he will rise from the dead and _eat_ him on the spot.

Eventually, Cry manages to bury his face into the grass and force himself to stop and catch his breath, counting from one until ten, twenty, thirty, fifty – and wow, he feels so _exhausted_ and everything sort of hurts right now. The exhilaration from the laughing fit still courses through his body but his energy is spent now and he lies there on the grass, feeling the rough stalks scratch his face, feels the cold breeze on his cheek, hears the stream sing a watery chorus a little away from where he is lying. 

When he thinks he’s fully calmed down, he slowly sits up and wipes his face, his teary eyes, and after adjusting his glasses, sees Pewdie calmly sitting in front of him, his cheeks flushed pink and he, too, is breathing deeply, trying to regain his breath. He’s gazing at Cry and there’s something of a smile on his face and Cry’s not even aware that his mouth is quirking upwards to return to Pewdie that same smile.

They end up just looking at each other for a while and Cry can’t believe that several minutes ago, they were sort-of fighting, were annoyed and pissed with one another because Pewdie had been an annoying bitch and Cry had been an ignorant, heartless jackass. He can’t believe that they ended up settling their differences all because he had failed to give Pewdie a back massage. 

When he recalls back to the series of events which have led to their reconciliation, it occurs to him that Pewdie may have already forgiven him the moment Cry asked for his wellbeing. Maybe Pewdie had already intended on forgiving him a long time ago. Maybe he’d been waiting for Cry to make the first move. Maybe Pewdie isn’t such a bad guy after all. Maybe Cry underestimated him. Maybe what Pewdie needs right now, what he deserves the most right now, is Cry’s apology.

So Cry does the right thing and gives it to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says regretfully. “I’m sorry I acted like a dick to you.”

Pewdie beams at his words and after a while, he remarks, “Yeah, you _were_ a bit of a dick. And I’m sorry I was a whiny bitch.” Cry is a little taken aback at the words but decides that it’s enough for him. It’s enough for him to accept them because he’s knows Pewdie well enough to understand what he means. A sense of relief settles in his chest and he feels good and warm and generous enough to motion towards Pewdie’s bare feet and ask, “Do you still want me to massage those for you?”

Pewdie blinks and looks down at his feet, which still appear sore and a little swollen at the end of his stretched-out legs, before he looks back up at Cry, lightly shaking his head. “Are you kidding?” he scoffs, swinging his body around and dipping both feet back into the stream. “Dude, you’re bad at this thing, remember? You might end up making it worse. I’m fine with putting my feet in the water though. But thanks for the offer anyway.” 

It’s said light-hearted enough that the words aren’t intended to be offensive so Cry finds he isn’t affected by them. Before he can reply to this, Pewdie adds, “Why don’t you put your feet in too? The water feels nice. Go _on_ , put them in.”

“Alright, alright,” says Cry, edging closer to the stream. After he pulls off his shoes and socks, he lowers his feet into the water but when his toes touch the surface, he jerks them back up.

“Yikes, it’s _cold_!” he exclaims. “How can you stand that?”

“Don’t be such a crybaby, Cry,” says Pewdie smoothly. “Just stick your feet in.”

Cry does, and after he feels a shiver run through his body when he lets the water level stop at his ankles, he finds that Pewdie is right, that the water feels nice on his feet and he curls his toes at the pleasant sensation of the stream’s current caressing his skin. He sighs in relief and settles back on the heels of his hands, looking up at the bright moon in the sky. It’s silent and peaceful here, with the soft crackling of the fire behind them, the quiet singing of the stream before them and Pewdie’s presence next to him, solid and real and warm.

This serene atmosphere is enough to give Cry the courage to say what he should have said many days ago, the moment Pewdie pulled him out of their wrecked car. “Thank you,” he says timidly, glancing over at Pewdie. “For saving my life.”

There is a pause as Pewdie stares at him with an indescribable look on his face. Then he abruptly looks away and Cry is sure he can see the flush of red that’s quickly blooming across the other’s cheeks. He feels a little embarrassed when he realises he’s rather flattered by Pewdie’s reaction. He’s just about to turn away himself when Pewdie stretches his arm out towards him and offers him his closed fist. Cry stares at it, astonished.

Usually their fist bumps, or ‘brofists’ as Pewdie calls them, are a gesture of celebration for their victories whenever they managed to get a good find from a raid or escaped the attentions of a zombie. Now, the fist bump that Pewdie presents him at the moment conveys a new subtle meaning. It’s a new gesture of reconciliation and acceptance – a gesture which tells them that things are okay between them. And here, Pewdie is affirming that message with him now. 

So Cry reaches across and bumps his fist against Pewdie’s with a smile; silently tells him that yes, everything is forgiven and they’re both going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, like, I made them fight. Sort of.
> 
> (Geez, you boys are going to go through more hell soon.)
> 
> Feedback, comments, kudos, etc. are appreciated, as always.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fancy a walk in the woods?
> 
> Don't let the trees get to you in the end.

**06.**

"I got it," Pewdie says suddenly. "If we want to get anywhere, we should just stick to the stream and follow it. It'll lead us to a river and then eventually, we might end up reaching a town or something. Some towns are built around rivers after all."

"Sounds like a good plan," Cry comments brightly. It's more than a good plan, it's a good idea, a much better one than just wandering around wild and woody terrain, and he instantly agrees to it so they set off at first light the next morning.

For the next two days, they travel downstream, picking their way through moist vegetation and slippery pebbles, and Cry makes sure they stop every few hours if he happens to glance back and notice when Pewdie starts looking tired or when the other man informs him he needs a break. He also adjusts their night time routine so that instead of catching snatches of sleep every few hours in between their hiking, they stay put in one place for the entire evening. It means that Cry lets Pewdie rest for as long as he wants while he keeps watch over them both. He also examines the CB radio they brought with them in order to pass the time.

However, on the second night of this new nightly routine, Pewdie points to the ground and says, "Go to sleep, Cry."

Cry knows he's sleep deprived because he's seen how he vaguely looks like judging by his reflection on the rippling water, how physically tired he appears with his eyes ringed with dark shadows. He knows he's becoming clumsy since he keeps slipping over the rocks they walk on and the fact that he feels as if he's on the brink of getting a cold. But he's used to this state when he was travelling alone back in the weeks before he met Pewdie. He's so used to being on guard all the time, whether night or day, that it became second nature to him.

"Pewds," he says, not really sure where to begin to explain. He needs to keep guard while they rest. Although the full moon has waned in the sky, there's still enough moonlight to see the surrounding area, to see if the shrubs or grass stalks shake with activity, to see whether something or someone could be heading towards their direction and they needed to bolt from the spot.

"Cry," Pewdie says again, much more firmly this time and with an emphatic tilt of his head. He motions towards the ground again and then to their backpacks, which are what they would use as makeshift pillows. "Don't worry about it. I'll keep watch this time. You go to sleep."

He tries to that night, he really does, but the night seems so loud in his ears – the sound of the water flowing down the stream, the rustling of leaves in the wind, the distant hooting of some animal. It's easy to keep his eyes closed and try to drift off into nothingness but some instinct in his body keeps pulling him back into consciousness.

Pewdie notices his restlessness and intervenes by berating him, "What the hell are you still awake for? Stop thinking, Cry. Don't think about anything and just go to sleep. What? Do you want me to read you a story too? Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess called Cry and she was kidnapped by a zombie dragon and had to be saved by a knight in shining armour who rides a fabulous rainbow duck–"

Funnily enough, even when Cry tells Pewdie to stop because laughing won't help him sleep, the latter just ignores him and continues on and Cry finds himself drifting off into unconsciousness to Pewdie's voice anyway. The next time he wakes up, shivering under his blanket, it's dawn and despite feeling a little tired, he feels a whole lot better, a lot more alert than the day before and when he sits up, he finds Pewdie dozing on his own backpack, wrapped like a cocoon in his own blanket, his flashlight on his chest and the rumpled, torn road map on the ground next to him.

"Did you find out where we are from the map?" Cry asks him about an hour later, when they sit by the bank and share a can of Spam between each other. They're slowly running out of food so they have to resort to sharing their rations when they can.

Pewdie looks embarrassed at being asked that question and he sheepishly pushes his hair away from his face. "Um, no, not really," he admits. "The map doesn't tell you much. I really have no idea where we are or where we…you know, crashed."

It's one of the rare times that Pewdie makes a brief reference to the car crash. Cry instantly notices this in Pewdie's conversations, the fact that the other man doesn't once mention the crash or the events which led to it. Even when he does, he doesn't stay on the topic very long. He also stops talking about anything that's related to either of their past lives. It's almost as if Pewdie is purposely avoiding the subjects altogether and it's one of the things Cry feels a little grateful to him for, even when he isn't sure what the reason behind it could be. He isn't complaining though – he still feels damn guilty for crashing their car – but if Pewdie doesn't want to bring it up, then Cry won't as well.

The topic of the car crash aside, Cry also wants to ask what Pewdie had been doing last night while he kept watch with his flashlight and map. Except he stops himself when he suddenly guesses what it is. Had Pewdie been _talking_ to those two items while Cry slept? Cry thought he stopped doing that weeks ago but the evidence right now points to the possibility that it is the case. Either way, he's happy to forget about asking because it's really none of his business so he finishes up the last scrap of their Spam – earning him a disapproving squawk from Pewdie – and reaches for his shovel, intending to bury the can into the ground.

They keep moving ahead, following the course of the stream until they reach a mossy, rocky slope which slants downwards. They then discover that their stream eventually merges with another channel of water which falls off a little, rocky drop that leads, at last, into a river.

"Made it," says Pewdie victoriously. He's sweating from the exertion of climbing down the rocks next to the waterfall. At one point when they descend this slope, Cry's cap is knocked off by the protruding branch of a shrub but thankfully floats onto the bank of the river and startles a bird that is stalking for bugs amongst the vegetation. Pewdie reaches down and retrieves the cap, plopping it back onto Cry's head and his hand accidentally knocks Cry's glasses askew.

"I guess we'll keep moving from here," Cry says after adjusting his glasses. "It looks like a downhill trail. We need to watch where we walk."

About a day later, the river they are following expands when they discover that another stream had slithered down a different slope and joined with it. The slope they are hiking down begins to grow steeper, making the water in the river beside them flow faster, until they reach a point where they are forced to rest every half an hour because of the amount of energy they had put in trying not to slip and fall. Cry begins to hate this riverside route they're on but he forces himself to endure it. He knows that Pewdie hates it too because, despite having apologised for it before, the other man has started whining again.

"This is so _hard_ ," Pewdie points out, carefully balancing on a rock. "Geez, I feel like I'm going to fall any time soon."

"Cry, don't go too fast. Don't leave me hanging here like this."

"Stupid fucking rocks. It's so unstable here. I can't find any place to put my feet. God, I'm going to fall."

" _Fuckity fu_ – ohh, that was so fucking close…"

"Uhhh… ohh, I don't wanna do this. Maybe we should hold hands. Then we can catch each other if one of us slips."

"Cry, Cry. I think I'm going to fall. Save me, Cry."

"Pewds, just watch your _feet_ ," Cry tells him through gritted teeth. On top of this unpleasant descent, he can't put all his concentration on where he's putting his feet. What he wants right now is some silence except it doesn't look like Pewdie is going to give him that privilege anytime soon. Irritated, he fights back the urge to throw something at Pewdie to get him to shut up but there isn't anything small enough around him to let him do that so he merely shuts Pewdie's voice out of his head and continues his descent.

Thankfully, the land begins to even out by the time noon rolls in so after an hour of rest, they are able to pick up their pace again. However, the trail they are trudging through soon becomes curtained by trees so dense that their thick trunks loom over them like giants, their canopies blocking out most of the sunlight, throwing them in shadows. Apart from the gurgle of running river water alongside them and the occasional rustling of leaves, there is almost no sound in this place.

They begin to find themselves creeping through these woods instead of walking, feeling small and insignificant, and Cry can't help shake the feeling that something is watching them, following them. It's stupid, he thinks as he clutches his shovel in his hands for reassurance, to be afraid of walking through this vast place surrounded by trees when there are other dangers outside it. However, he can't help but compare this environment and its sinister atmosphere to the woods in _Slender Man_.

Pewdie, of course, isn't making this situation any easier. Although Cry is grateful that he isn't alone, Pewdie's nervous rambling and his easily startled disposition are making him increasingly agitated and on edge. Every sudden noise they hear – the crack of a twig being stepped on, the rustling of the leaves above them, a sharp splash as something hits in the water – makes them jump and spin around in alarm.

" _Ahhh_ –!" Pewdie screeches behind him and the sudden sound cuts into the thick compressed silence of the wood and for the umpteenth time, Cry jumps, his heart pounding hard in his chest, and sharply turns to see Pewdie cowering away from a gnarly branch he had just walked into. Immediately, Cry feels incredibly angry at being startled like that because this is doing _shit_ to his nerves and – goddamn it, I need to hold myself back from bashing Pewdie in the head with the shovel because he needs to fucking _stop. Please._

"Fucking branch," Pewdie berates, oblivious to Cry's agitated nature right now as he lightly hits the woody limb with his crowbar. "Stop creeping up on me like that! You like that? That's me hitting you. Geez, I really don't like this, Cry. How long 'till we get out of this place?"

"I don't fucking _know_ ," says Cry, unable to keep the snappish quality out of his voice. He feels like a coiled spring right now, ready to be released at any time and god, he's just getting tired of everything, of the easily scared Pewdie, of being so tensed and on edge and then jumping at every sound like this. He hates these woods, hates them so much. All he wants to do is to get out and _burn_ it all down.

By the time sunset arrives, it's so dark that they don't dare move another step further, even with the help of their flashlights. They're already exhausted from startling so much that they don't care that they make a bonfire in the middle of the woods and sit around it, their weapons clutched tightly in their hands. They wait for rest to settle in their minds and bodies, except it doesn't happen that way in this place.

If daylight in the woods was unsettling, night time in the woods becomes downright _terrifying_.

The orange-red glow of the fire becomes their only source of light and warmth and it's surrounded by the dark skeletal shapes of nearby trees that seem to have come alive in the night. Beyond that, a vast void of blackness lies where the rest of the wood used to be. Wavering shapes and shadows cast by the gnarly trees dance in the fire light every time a cold breeze creeps through the air. The noises which have been absent in the daytime seemed to have returned at night, sounding louder than ever in the dark – strange noises unlike those of animal calls which send chills and icy spikes of fear down their spines. What results from this is Cry and Pewdie huddling together, bodies stiff with tension and ears pricked as they keep a watchful eye on the darkness beyond the fire's light.

"What's out there, Cry?" Pewdie can't help but say, although his voice comes out as a nervous whisper. Apart from the crowbar that's lying across his lap, he's clutching his flashlight, holding it up like a weapon instead, his finger ready on the switch to illuminate the darkness.

"I-I'd rather not know though," Cry murmurs shakily beside him, unconsciously rubbing the goosebumps which have popped up all over the skin of his wrist.

A sudden noise that sounds like a garbled cackle pierces the stillness from somewhere in the partly visible trees and Cry startles, stifles a gasp in his mouth and senses Pewdie leaning closer to him in alarm. Petrified by the sound, they both stare in terror at the blackness in front of them, expecting to see something manifest before their eyes. There is a tense few seconds as they wait for something to happen but nothing comes at them. At least nothing yet.

Then Pewdie suddenly pushes him away and stumbles onto his feet, shakily muttering, "Right, I'm getting the fuck out of here." And Cry automatically reaches up and grabs onto his wrist in an iron grip, tugging him back down.

" _Stay put_ ," he instructs firmly and he's terrified to find that he can't raise his voice higher than a whisper. " _Don't run. Don't run into the woods. Stay in the light. You'll get lost. Just stay put_."

"You're crazy," Pewdie lowers his own voice into a hiss but he does settle back down next to him. "We don't know what's – whatever that thing is. What if it comes here and gets us?"

" _Don't run_ ," Cry says again and he's actually screaming it in a whisper. In reality, he feels the strong impulse to bolt from the spot like Pewdie does too but where is there to run into except into that darkness?

"This is like the fucking Blair Witch Project," Pewdie whispers and goddamn it, Pewds, god-fucking- _damn_ it– that is the worst fucking thing to say ever because Cry's distress level just skyrocketed and now he's trying very hard not to stand up and run away. This is worse than any horror game he'd played in the past. He was fine before, at least a little bit fine because it was easy to pretend that it was the light playing tricks on them and also these woods are just so fucking spooky, but now when he stares into the darkness, he knows that the darkness is staring back at him with a gazillion unseen eyes. He knows that the darkness is playing games with them, trying to scare them to the point where they run straight into its cold, black embrace.

He can feel Pewdie shaking in fear beside him – or it might be Cry who is shaking – and he tells himself that he should calm the fuck down and don't run, just stay put and don't run because there's nothing out there even though every instinct in his body screams at him that there _is_ , there is _something_ out there and it's waiting and it will come for them when they least expect it. Cry forces himself to breathe slowly; to count to ten, thirty, fifty, a hundred. He forces himself to ignore the watching darkness and the noises and his own paranoia which are slowly trying to break him down.

He and Pewdie don't sleep at all that night.

When dawn approaches, they immediately set off and they're both silent and stiff, weary and bad-tempered. Cry doesn't care if Pewdie gets left behind because he's intent on getting the hell out of here. He half-expects Pewdie to call out and whine at him again – and Cry is prepared to snap at him if that were to happen – but he doesn't. The other man is trudging in silence behind him as usual, his face haggard and mouth quirked downwards into a sulk. He looks too worn-out to speak but there's a determination in his stride that tells Cry that Pewdie wants to get out of here as much as he does.

Finally, they reach a point in the woods where the trees begin to thin and they're able to see the sky again. Once sunlight touches them, that's when Pewdie throws down his backpack, lies down on the ground with his back facing him and grumpily announces, "I am going to fucking sleep right here and you're not going to stop me, Cry."

Cry doesn't argue against this because he's too tired to do so and he really doesn't give a fuck anymore, so he props his own backpack against a rock and settles down to fall asleep himself. For once, he doesn't care whether they get attacked by wild animals or zombies or child-killing witches who happen to be wandering about the area.

One afternoon later, when their moods have improved and they're walking at a leisurely pace, Cry looks into the river and sees a small mass of shadowed forms dart past a cluster of rocks in the flowing water. He reaches out to grab Pewdie's arm.

"What is it?" Pewdie asks next to him and follows the direction of his gaze. They stare longer at the water and once the sunlight hits the ripples, the shadow forms turn out to be a school of fish.

He and Pewdie exchange silent, knowing looks. Then Pewdie says, "I'll go get some sharp sticks."

"You have a _crowbar_ ," Cry points out with a raised eyebrow.

"Not as fun as using a stick," Pewdie says with a grin. He turns towards the trees and begins hunting for a stick long and sharp enough to use for fishing. Once they procure two reasonable ones, they roll up their pant legs and wade into the river and lie in wait.

Pewdie, of course, doesn't really do quiet and patient. Cry doesn't know whether to laugh at his unnecessary commentary or tell him to shut the fuck up and fish.

"I'm gonna get you, fishies," Pewdie murmurs in one of his dramatic voices, his sharp stick held high above him. "Come closer to me. That's it. I have something to show you– _Hah!_ Got you– eh, no? No, I was so close! No, _no_. Stop moving! Get over here. Where are you going – oh, no don't go away." His voice suddenly changes into a pleading wheeze, "I, I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. Come back, fishies. We'll be friends. Fish! Fishies! Noooo!"

Almost an hour later, they haven't caught a single thing apart from Cry almost skewering his own foot by mistake when a fish swims too close to him. Just as he thinks he might need to find a better stick, Pewdie lets out a howl of frustration, splashing water into the air, staining the entirety of his faded red T-shirt, and wails, "I am so fucking _done_!" before he stabs his stick into the riverbed in anger.

About a second later, his face changes and then he's whooping with laughter.

"Cry!" he yells excitedly, tugging his stick free and lifts it out of the water. There, skewered into the sharp end is a fat fish, its tail flailing wildly in the air and showering droplets of water all over them.

"Holy shit," Cry says in amazement, hardly believing what he's seeing.

"That's how I _roll_!" Pewdie hollers after whooping in victory and waves his catch above his head. He lets his fist fly through the air so that Cry can catch it with his own in a fist bump. "Quick, Cry. Let's go build a fire."

They share their only fish together, bury the bones on Cry's insistence and set off in a good mood, much better than in the last few days, on account of their victory in catching their own lunch. They break into lighthearted banter about who can catch the most fish next time and Cry thinks they need to do this more often, working together to get their meals in the wild, because it puts them in a good mood and a good mood is what they need now after their experience in the thick, sinister woods a day before. He thinks, we can do this. We can survive like this. We'll be okay.

It's a simple life living in the wild from then on. The concept of time doesn't matter here because every day is the same to them. They get up when it's light and walk by the riverside, watching the sun climb up and down the sky, and when it's dark, they go to sleep. Cry almost feels tempted to stay in this woodland terrain by the riverside and avoid human habitation altogether. It's a much more peaceful life compared to running away from zombies and anyway, he and Pewdie have been doing well so far after all.

One morning a few days later, while they sit down by the bank, quietly finishing off the last scraps of their fish over the diminishing fire, a deer walks past them and lowers its head to drink water from the river. Cry and Pewdie both freeze at the sight, not daring to breathe, and just stare in fascination at the animal, who didn't seem to have noticed their presence. Once it finishes, it lifts its head, its ears flicking, before it turns and sees them.

As Cry stares into the creature's eyes, thoughts begin to buzz in his head. It's bizarre, he realises with a start, it's bizarre that the human world right now lies in chaos and disorder while here in the wild, nothing seems to have changed and life continues on peacefully. Walking through this woodland world feels like walking through limbo, separated from the harsh, horrible reality that's outside it. Yet, they're not exactly living while they're here, nor are they even surviving either. Instead, it all feels as if they're just escaping from what they're supposed to be doing.

He sees the deer's nose twitch before it turns and trots off, eventually disappearing into the trees. Finally, he and Pewdie both relax and breathe. The remains of their fish lie forgotten in their hands.

"That was weird," says Pewdie, glancing over to where the deer had vanished. "But that was also amazing."

It certainly was, yet Cry thinks he's gained something else from this encounter. He's suddenly reminded of his own philosophy that he lived by in the first three weeks of this zombie hell: that he should never stay put and hide away for too long. What they need to do is to get out – out of this wilderness and out of this zombie land – and find help. He can feel the CB radio in his bag weighing him down, reminding him that they're still on a quest. They still need to complete their search for batteries so that they can call for help, so they can be saved.

"We should keep moving," Cry tells him seriously, suddenly business-like as he straightens up and tosses the bones into the flowing river instead of burying them like they usually do. "We've got to hit a town or somewhere sooner or later. Come on."

They spend a gruelling few days continuing their hike alongside the riverside. Pewdie fills the silence with his chatter while they walk and it isn't so bad at first because Cry knows he needs to talk and laugh once in a while. However, as time goes by and every day they see more river and more trees, Cry finds himself just craving for silence.

"Do you think if zombies wander in here, they'll eat all the wildlife too?" Pewdie chit-chats behind him. "Oh, imagine how it'll look like if a grizzly bear and a zombie had a showdown. I wonder who'd win? I say the grizzly anytime. What about you, Cry?"

When Cry doesn't answer, he feels the end of Pewdie's crowbar gently tap him on the shoulder. "Oh," he says absent-mindedly. "Maybe the zombie?"

"The zombie?" Pewdie snorts in disbelief. "You mean a 6-foot zombie struggling against a 10-foot grizzly and you say the zombie will win? Do you even hear yourself?" When Cry doesn't answer again, he asks a little concernedly, "Are you okay, man? Maybe you should take a break. It'll do you good. Maybe we could fish. Do you want to fish? I can still catch more than you–"

"Pewds," says Cry exasperatedly, holding himself back from snapping because he doesn't want to offend the other. "I'm fine, okay? Can you just–" he pauses because he can't just tell Pewdie to stop talking because sometimes the other man can't help chattering on like this. "Let's just keep moving, alright?"

It's exasperating sometimes to only have Pewdie for company, to only have him to talk to, to put up with his constant whining and noise. It's not that he's slowly hating the other's company because he's grateful not to be alone in this. But there are just some days when he's tired of the same face, of the same voice, and all he wants is to stay away from him.

There's also the question of their walking pace because Pewdie just lags behind him, taking frequent breaks in between their hiking, and Cry thinks they're just going too slow. He really wants to get somewhere with this riverside trail and if they keep moving at this speed, they might still be here for another few days, _weeks_. Cry thinks he could go crazy if they don't see a town soon.

It's these things that make Cry compare Pewdie to a form of heavy baggage that he's lugging behind him. Oftentimes, he has a wild urge to leave the other man on a rock somewhere just because he is too _slow_ and too _noisy_.

At long last, after another few days of travelling with Pewdie chattering nonstop like a noisy bird and Cry occasionally joining in or sliding back into glum silence, the river leads them out of the woodland into open grassy, hilly ground. Cry stops at the peak of one of these hills and breathes a long sigh of relief. _Finally_ , he thinks, open ground, open sky, grass and wind and sunshine. It feels like he had just emerged from a dark maze he got lost in, like he had just woken up from a dream he slept too long in. It's a sensational feeling to finally reach somewhere different and he silently rejoices at the change of scenery because he's sick and tired of seeing fucking trees every day. Beside him, Pewdie whoops in victory and does a strange little dance in celebration of it before he falls back onto the grass and sighs.

"Roll with me, Cry," he says invitingly and begins rolling. "Roll with me like we did in _Day-Z_."

Cry doesn't feel like rolling when he lies back on the grass, staring up at open sky. He doesn't feel like dealing with Pewdie right now after feeling like he'd been lugging him around for days to reach this open sunlight. He murmurs out, "Keep a lookout for me, will you?" to Pewdie and by the time Pewdie sits up to ask what he just said, Cry had turned away from him and is already drifting off to sleep.

 

Some days, there are times when Pewdie can't stand the outdoors, when he gets sick of being under the sun all the time or when he sits down to rest and pulls off his shoes to find grass and dirt residue inside. He knows he's not used to living in the wild like this, knows he can't do anything about it, knows he needs to get used to it if he wants to get anywhere, but sometimes he cannot help but _whine_ about it. He can't help but say how much he doesn't enjoy it, this constant moving on and on and resting without a roof over their heads. He craves for the cosy interior of his car, for the cool air-conditioning and the bad music flowing out of the speakers. He craves for the feel of the steering wheel under his fingers, the pedal under his foot, the open road in his sight. God, he _misses_ it a lot.

But he doesn't want to blame Cry for making them lose the car. He doesn't want to mention it at all and lets any reference he makes about Bluey slide into nothingness. He's also very careful not to talk about anything related to their past lives because they both know that it's a touchy, dangerous subject for Cry. Besides, he knows it's also partially his fault that Cry was pressured to the point where he couldn't see where he was driving. So no, Pewdie doesn't want to make Cry feel guilty for crashing the car. He senses that Cry seemed to have picked up his reluctance to bring the topic up because the other man doesn't mention it too and in the end, they both treat it as something unspeakable between them.

The only time when Pewdie does sort of bring it up and talk about it openly is at night when it's his turn to keep a lookout and only when he makes sure that Cry is fast asleep. That's when he takes out both Torchy and Map – GPS was missing in the wrecked car so he couldn't save it – and after making sure that Cry is unconscious, begins to speak to them only about the topics that he doesn't want the other to listen in on. It's just like the first few days of his and Cry's reunion when Pewdie expresses his thoughts and concerns to GPS and Map in the car.

"He's been acting so out of it these days," Pewdie whispers, absent-mindedly flicking Torchy's switch on and off and throwing his face into light and darkness while Map lies on his lap and listens. "And it's like he won't talk to me anymore. I even try to make him laugh but he doesn't give a crap to anything I say. I know I'm being a whiny bitch again but at least I don't complain as much. I only joke around, like we always do when we're playing co-op games, because it's so quiet and _boring_ just walking straight on next to the river, right?"

"Maybe he's just tired of listening to you, Pewdie," Torchy tells him timidly. "You should probably give him a break."

"How can he get tired of _me_?" Pewdie says in disbelief. "I'm awesome to be with."

"Maybe he's getting tired of you because you're becoming boring," Map points out in a matter-of-factly tone, like it always does. "He's restless, like you are. Just walking along a river and seeing nothing around for miles. No matter how far you go, it looks like you're going around in circles and you're getting nowhere. Maybe you'll end up dying from starvation before you reach town. Imagine that: being lost out here with no help at all. It's almost as bad as running away from zombies."

"Geez, are you trying to make this worse than what it already is?" Pewdie yelps, feeling the spike of fear creep into his bones at the thought. "You're supposed to tell me something positive to keep me going, you know."

"No, I'm supposed to give you a reality check once in a while," Map reminds him nonchalantly. "It's the only way to get you to think about anything seriously. Cry seems to be on that mind-set right now. Maybe that's why he seems so 'no-nonsense' these days. Maybe it's about time _you_ were too."

Pewdie leans back against the fell tree they've camped around and looks up at the sky, at the millions of stars twinkling in the vast black blanket of space and sighs exasperatedly.

"I dunno," he admits in a murmur, trying to sound reasonable. "I can't help being like this. I don't do silence that well, especially if you're stuck in the woods or climbing up hills and there's no one around. I need to say and laugh at something. I mean, if _I_ keep being serious all the time, thinking too much about death and staying alive, I don't think I can handle it. I don't think I'd be able to recognise myself anymore. And then there's Cry. I really don't know what's going on with him. I _want_ to ask him but I don't know if he'll tell me. What if he shuts me out again like the last time? I thought I could be the one to lighten things up for him but it seems he keeps turning away if I do." Map's pages flutter a little in the night breeze and Pewdie imagines it dismissing his words.

"One day you'll have to wake up," says Map a little wisely. "One day you'll have to take all this seriously again. You and Cry only have each other after all. Try not to let bad blood boil between you two when the time comes."

Pewdie senses the truth in Map's words, how crucial it is that he and Cry need to get along because he knows it's the best way for the both of them to survive, so he decides to suck it up and take the first step to clear this uneasy air between them. When Cry wakes up the next morning and splashes water onto his face, Pewdie is already cooking their fishy breakfast for them. Once he hands over a portion to Cry, he sits down beside him and says, "Listen. I just want to say sorry, man. If I've been, you know, really annoying these past few days."

Cry looks taken aback by his apology as he stares at him through a mouthful of fish. Pewdie can see the conflict of emotions flashing across his face. Then Cry swallows before looking away, lowering his meal onto his lap and appearing a little guilty.

"I'm–" he begins hoarsely and his eyebrows knit together into a frown. "I guess I've been acting like an asshole to you too. I don't know why. I think it might've been the trees. The trees were getting to me. I'm sorry as well." He sounds apologetic and sincere enough for him so Pewdie accepts it all.

"So we're good, right?" Pewdie asks brightly and accompanies this with a raised fist. He's grateful and relieved when Cry smiles and bumps the fist with his own. There is no need for any more words. Their fist bump becomes enough to reassure him that no grudges are being held and all is well between them again.

When they set off to walk once more, the atmosphere between them becomes lighter and much more relaxed and this time, Cry begins to entertain Pewdie's words again, sometimes speaking in a casual tone, sometimes a teasing one, and occasionally a serious one. Pewdie thinks, we'll be okay. We're awesome. We'll be okay as long as we stick together and get along.

However, this good air doesn't stay with them very long. While hiking together, Pewdie begins noticing how restless Cry seems to be in the next few hours, days– he doesn't really know anymore. He picks it up from the way Cry strides forward on their trail with purpose, as if he's in a hurry to get somewhere again, or the way he quickly packs everything up into his bag and is ready to go after they camp for the night. He's also started humming and muttering songs to himself and doesn't seem to care if Pewdie joins in or not. The only time when he doesn't seem that fidgety is when they're fishing. That's when Cry is in his element, staying absolutely still in the water and he's brimming with energy, tense as a spring coil and ready to strike when a fish comes near him.

Soon, Pewdie begins to learn that there are just some things he can't do in Cry's presence without setting the latter off. Perhaps it was what Cry had said – maybe it was the trees that were getting to him, or the grassy hills around them, or the riverside they are walking along. Maybe it's the boredom and inactivity in this wilderness. Maybe it's the fact that they don't do anything but walk and walk and _walk_. Maybe _that_ is what's putting Cry on edge.

And Pewdie discovers all this when he makes the mistake of jokily mentioning the possibility of a zombie hiding behind the hedge they're looking at and foolishly goes to check it out. That's when he feels Cry's hand roughly pulling him back by the hem of his shirt and hears his reprimanding voice in his ear.

"The _hell_ are you doing?" Cry scolds sharply, frowning disapprovingly at him. "It's okay to joke about things but don't go so far that you do stupid things like that. If you think that that's a hiding place for a zombie or something else, for fuck's sake, don't go near it."

Pewdie knows Cry is serious judging by the hardness in his eyes. But he's also very annoyed at being told off like a child by Cry of all people. He lightly slaps the other's hand off his shirt and mutters, "Okay, okay, _mother_."

The word – that word slips out of his lips by mistake and Pewdie silently berates himself for his carelessness because he's been doing so well, he's been careful with what he says so far. Panicking slightly, he quickly glances at Cry and catches the twitch in the other's eyebrow, a flash of something raw and hurtful in his eyes but it's gone when Cry turns his head a little and the sunrays reflect the lens off his glasses, hiding his gaze.

Pewdie recognises the dangerous tension in the air between them brought about by Cry's harsh reprimand and his own careless comeback, and decides to quickly diminish it by acting on the first idea that comes to him. He leans down to grab a rock off the ground and hurls it at the hedge in question. Cry's eyes widen in alarm but he's too shocked by Pewdie's unexpected actions to speak. They watch as the rock sails into the air and buries itself into the body of the wild hedge, the impact of the collision making its green foliage shake slightly. Nothing happens.

There's a stretch of silence between them before Cry is the first one to speak and his voice is light and absent of its chiding note, "I think you've given us a solution there. It looks like there's no zombie behind that hedge."

"Heheh, what can I say," says Pewdie breezily, picking up on Cry's now calmed-down nature. "I'm a _genius_." He lightly knocks Cry's hand that's hanging by his side with his knuckles in what is supposed to be a very subtle form of a fist bump, and manages to catch Cry's look of surprise at the gesture. Grinning, he then turns and resumes walking. Unbeknownst to the other, he secretly breathes a sigh of relief at his quick thinking.

 _That was close_ , Map tells him telepathically from where it perches in the inner pocket of his jacket. _Who knows what would've happened if you didn't stop it from getting any worse. He could've shut himself off and not talk to you anymore._

This is stupid, Pewdie thinks to himself, uncertain on whether to be angry or sad at what had become of his and Cry's relationship now. They're supposed to be friends, alright, they're a team and they're supposed to be awesome together. He just doesn't understand why they're no longer that good with each other anymore, why they're not getting along as well as they did before. He just doesn't understand why he has to start tip-toeing around Cry, who has suddenly become a touchy bitch, just so Pewdie doesn't upset him and disturb that equilibrium between them.

Except that if this is what it takes to keep them good, then Pewdie will have to endure it. He'll have to wait until they're at a better place, when they reach a town or somewhere or when Cry is in a better mood, if he wants to confront him. One way or another, they'll have to communicate with each other properly again.

Time passes and Pewdie doesn't know how long it's been since they've emerged from the trees, since the spooky woods, since they've lost Bluey, but one morning when the dawn mist begins to dissipate the higher the sun ascends in the sky, they go down another grassy slope and Cry stops in mid-descent to stare at something in the distance. When he doesn't move for almost a minute, Pewdie steps up next to him and peers through the thinning mist. He's able to see things at a longer distance much better than Cry so he easily spots whatever it is that the other is looking at.

It's a bridge made of wood and steel arching over the river and there's a two-lane tarmac road running across it, wide enough to allow large vehicles to pass through. A spark of excitement begins to ignite in Pewdie's chest as they stare at the bridge, the first human-like thing they've seen in a long while. He can hear Cry's breathing quicken beside him and feels the latter's hand tug at his shirt sleeve, urging him onwards.

"Let's go," comes the invitation and Cry resumes his descent, his pace increased a notch and Pewdie scrambles down after him.

A road just means a new direction which will hopefully lead them closer to finding a town, Pewdie thinks. Soon, they don't have to stay out like this any longer. They could squat at an empty house and rest under a roof and sleep in a bed. Geez, when was the last time I slept in a proper bed anyway?

It takes them one or two hours to reach the bridge and when they arrive, they examine it from all angles as if it was an object of fascination. Pewdie looks up and down the length of the road on either side of the bridge, discerns a few tyre marks that have skidded into the grass by the side, and tries to decide on which direction they could follow which will lead them towards a town and fast.

All of a sudden, Cry is standing next to him and he's pointing at the direction that's leading upwards another slope. "That way," he says resolutely and Pewdie shoots him a look.

"Why that way?" he asks, peering at the direction that Cry is pointing towards. "There isn't a board of directions telling us which way to go."

"The skid marks," Cry says simply, motioning them with a nod of his head. "Those tracks look like they were made recently and whatever car that made those must have been going fast, right? And it looks like they've headed down that other direction, yes? Now, why would a car be driving away in a hurry like that?"

Instantly, Pewdie gets it and his eyes widen with understanding. "Because they're driving away from _somewhere_ , like a town. Of _course_!" He proudly pats Cry on the back for his effort and says, "That's so smart. Good job, Cry!" and offers another victory fist bump to the other for good measure.

After travelling alongside the river for so long, they finally part from it and Pewdie is almost sad to see the channel of water go as they begin the next step of their journey on the tarmac road after they cross the bridge. Once they reach the peak of the slope, the ground suddenly evens out and they can now see clumps of suburban housing estates clustered together on either side of the long road they're on and beyond that, in the far distance, the grim structures and boxy shapes of brick and concrete buildings that make up a town.

"Holy _shit_ ," Cry breathes and then lets out a laugh beside him. It's the first real laugh Pewdie's heard from him for days.

"We made it," Pewdie exclaims, hardly believing what he's seeing and he's never been so happy to look at man-made buildings before. They look beautiful lying there in the dust and the sunlight. "We made it, Cry," he says again, suddenly feeling so excited he might burst. He seizes a still dazed Cry by the shoulders and spins him around on the spot. "We're back in civilisation again. I feel like a new man! And fucking hell, I'm getting sick of eating fish now. Let's break into a house and raid their fridge. Come on, Cry. I'm _pumped_. Let's fucking _do_ this."

And then in a fit of exultation, he holds onto Cry's forearm and begins to drag him forwards, towards the nearest clump of suburban houses and Cry is breaking out into giggles and telling him to "Hang on, will you? I'm still a little dizzy after you spun me around too fast. Geez, stop, stop, _stop_ for a second. I'm trying to regain my balance here, man."

The moment they enter the backyard of the nearest house they reach, Pewdie immediately spots a pair of zombies inside, the first two they've seen in such a long time. They are two male zombies, an older one about thirty and another one younger by a couple of years – brothers, perhaps? – standing in different places from each other yet within sight of the windows and the half-open sliding glass door of the house. It's silent in the neighbourhood and they don't know how many zombies are out there on the streets apart from these two.

Pewdie watches the pair carefully by the glass door, notes their blank, twisted expressions and lolling mouths and the way they stand dazedly on the spot, waiting for some form of auditory stimuli to rouse them into activity. These are obviously the sleeping zombies, meaning that it's good news for them. They can sneak past these two and go on to explore the house silently and search for supplies, for food, and then get out of here. It will be just like the good old times with Cry when they planned and worked together on a supply run. He feels pumped enough for the job already. It's great to have this familiar feeling of purpose back after days, _weeks_ of endless walking and catching fish.

He senses that Cry is as excited as he is because he's suddenly tense around the shoulders again, gripping the makeshift strap of the shovel with his hand, and is breathing slowly like he's forcing himself to calm down. Pewdie puts a reassuring hand on his arm and feels Cry quivering under his fingers. When he squeezes the arm, Cry's eyes meet his and they're surprisingly hard and focused, and Pewdie silently rejoices inside when he easily reads the other man's gaze: _We go in and we close the door behind us._

Fuck yes, Pewdie thinks. It's just like before. We can communicate with each other without saying it aloud. We're the awesome ninja stealth team once again. We're gonna do great.

Pewdie has his crowbar with him but he rarely uses it except for emergencies or when they need to break something without worrying about the noise. But Cry always insists he bring it with him in their supply runs anyway just in case something goes wrong. He clutches it in his hand right now, lets it hang by his side as he quietly slides the glass door open a little more. He reels back slightly when he's hit by the awful stench of body decomposition and bites back a disgusted comment.

They quietly slip inside once the gap in the door is large enough to allow them through and Pewdie finds himself standing in a pretty, well-lit dining room and kitchen area. The overall effect though is ruined by the shattered remains of some plates and the bloodstains on the carpet under the dining table. The two zombie siblings – it's clear now from the framed photographs on the wall – are languidly standing on different sides of the combined rooms, the younger of the pair by the kitchen sink and the older one by a staircase just outside the rooms. Pewdie watches them carefully as he slowly slides the door shut behind them, taking care to notice any change in the zombies, whether the miniscule noises they are making might draw their attention.

The first thing that Pewdie wants to target is the food cabinet instead of the fridge because he would really like something that hasn't gone bad and is in a box or a can or a packet. After that, he wants to search around the place for some booze to drink because he figures he and Cry deserve it after what they've been through. He also wants to find an empty house somewhere that they can stay in for a while just so Pewdie can jump into a bed and sleep for a whole week. What they need to do for all that to happen is to stay quiet, move slow, take their time and not wake the zombies up.

Except, this doesn't all go to plan. At least, it doesn't go how Pewdie expects it to go anyway.

Because Cry suddenly brushes past him and charges towards the zombie by the sink, the sudden burst of speed knocking his cap off his head to fall onto the ground. Shocked, Pewdie automatically reaches out a hand to stop him, but his voice is stifled in his throat when he watches Cry raise his shovel in the air only to swing it violently across the unsuspecting zombie's head.

There's a _clang_ as the metal crashes against the side of creature's face with such force that the thin cheekbones shatter and crumple inwards, the eye ball bursts like a popped pimple and the jaw dislocates to the side. The swing's momentum throws the zombie to the ground and Pewdie is horrified to see a glimpse of what's left of its smashed face. It's short-lived when Cry stomps onto its chest to keep it still and drives the blade end of the shovel into the middle of its face once, twice, three times until it pierces the bone in a sharp _crack_ and the face becomes no more but a bashed, gory portrait.

Pewdie can't do anything but stare in dumb fascination at the sight before him because he realises with a start that he has _never_ seen Cry kill before, that they have never killed anything during their supply runs or whenever they encounter zombies because they always run and hide whenever they see them. He's alarmed by the brutality of it, by how gut-wrenchingly violent the action seems in real life, especially when it had been done by someone familiar to him.

It's only when he hears a guttural voice snarling from somewhere nearby that he suddenly remembers that there's still one more zombie left in the house. Pewdie feels a flash of panic at the realisation that it would have woken up by the sounds of its sibling getting killed and – oh shit, there it is, he can see it staggering into the kitchen, dragging its broken knee, and it looks horrible, a chunk of its throat is gone after getting torn out and its neck and shirt are stained with so much dried blood. It's heading towards the noise, towards Cry, and Pewdie wants to scream out a warning but for some reason he's lost his voice, he can't move, and Cry, Cry is just _standing_ there, what the _fuck_ , man. Cry, Cry, look _out_ –

But Cry strikes the moment the zombie launches itself at him like it was spring-loaded, and catches it on the side of the head in mid-air, making it crumple to the floor on all fours. And then he's on top of the creature and he's unleashing blow after blow onto the back of its head with the blade of his shovel until the skull breaks, until it shatters, until the whole thing collapses in a bloody mess of bones and brains which oozes all over the floor.

When Cry straightens up and lowers his dripping shovel, Pewdie sees that he's covered in blood, guts and brain juice. It's all over his clothes, his shovel, his hands, his face, his hair, his glasses, and Cry doesn't seem to care about this, doesn't seem bothered that there are two zombies with heads smashed into unrecognisable pulps by his feet.

But when Pewdie glimpses the other man's eyes, he is taken aback by what he sees, by the emotions swirling in that gaze, by the bloodlust and anger and delight and hurt and sadness contained in it. Combined with the blood-splattered appearance, Pewdie isn't sure if he's looking at Cry anymore. He's not even aware that he'd taken an unconscious step back when Cry lifts his head up to look at him and his eyes are bright and maniacal as he speaks in a strange, raspy voice, "Fucking hell, I haven't done this in a long, long time."

For the first time since the zombie apocalypse started, Pewdie finds himself utterly lost for words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this wasn't a favourite chapter of mine at first. But it turned out okay in the end because I realised there's a coincidental synchrony between the way I wrote Cry's part in this chapter for being a little long and draggy and the long and draggy journey he and Pewds take through the woods. At the same time, this pace follows Cry's own thinking patterns - after knowing how long this hike is taking for him, Cry (and the Reader, maybe) becomes restlessness to get out. Wow. The best part about this realisation for me? I didn't even know this was going to happen.
> 
> But really, if you were stuck in the woods with a friend for weeks on end, don't you sometimes feel like you want to bash them in the head too?
> 
> Feedback, comments, kudos etc. are, as always, appreciated. Would love it if you say hi once in a while.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I wonder how I can churn out 8K+ worded chapters every week. But there ya go, another monster chapter for you folks. (This one's over 12K words.)

**07.**

The moment when he storms towards that first zombie, there's a rush of exhilaration spreading like fire through his veins which bursts into a fit of violence as his shovel smashes into the creature's face. He watches as the impact crushes part of the skull inwards like a cracked egg, watches as it throws the undead man to the floor and he grinds it down with his foot and doesn't let one second of hesitation escape him as he stabs the shovel blade into that ruined face and breaks it even further.

And there's raw power filling him up and he can feel it tingling on the tips of his fingers where he's gripping his shovel. That first kill was done so swiftly, the movements so practiced and he easily recalls how natural it feels again, how he still has it in him to swing and smash things to obliteration, like recalling each note when playing an old melody on a piano.

And then while he stares down at his kill, satisfied at how precise his aim on its face had been, he's aware that the second zombie is staggering down towards him, its broken foot scratching against the floor as it drags itself closer. When he glances up, he's already tightening his grip on the handle of his shovel, counting to three, and doesn't flinch when the creature launches itself at him like some hideous, demented cat. He catches a glimpse of its torn neck as it flaps open like a gutted fish and the inside of its mouth that's missing a tongue between the twin rows of rotten teeth.

During the second kill, he lets himself go, lets out all his emotions – the guilt for losing their car, the frustration for walking miles and miles alongside a river for weeks, the exasperation for only having Pewdie for company, the impatience for reaching their destination, the excitement for getting a job done – he lets them drive his movements just like they did the first time he kills a zombie after Marilyn and George's deaths. He can't stab the shovel blade into the creature's face when he knocks it face-down so he resorts to repeatedly smashing it on the back of the head until it reduces into a bloody, juicy pulp.

Then he straightens up once again and he's panting for breath, his arms tingling and warm from the strain, feels the power still rippling through his form. He's aware that he's covered in blood and gore, feels it beginning to harden on his skin and he knows he's ready for more, ready to kill some more, ready to face another undead creature and bludgeon it to death.

 _Damn_ , he thinks. _It feels fucking good to let everything out._

Still high on the adrenaline that's rushing through his veins, he meets Pewdie's gaze by the sliding glass door, feels light-headed as he mutters to the other something about how long it's been since he'd done this. He wants to grin at him, reassure him that the danger has passed because he'd taken care of the problem but he's now aware of Pewdie's pale, shocked complexion as the latter stares back at him. At some point, the other man had dropped his crowbar where it lies there on the floor by his feet.

Cry frowns and motions towards the two bodies on the ground, "They're dead. It's safe now. We can hole up in this house for a couple of days." When he moves his head to emphasize his point, a gloop of congealed blood drops from his hair and slops messily onto his cheek. He wipes it away in disgust and realises he's only staining his face even more because his hands are red with blood. Geez, he'd forgotten how messy and often unhygienic this job can be.

When Pewdie doesn't answer him, which is a very odd thing for him to do, Cry shoots him a look of confusion and says a little more loudly this time, "Pewds, chill the fuck out. They're dead. We're _safe_ now."

He watches as Pewdie opens and closes his mouth a few times like a fish, looking as if he's grasping for words before he finally settles with a sharply delivered remark of, "Yeah, I _know_ that already. Don't need to point out the obvious." Pewdie then detaches himself from the glass door, leaning down briefly to pick up his crowbar and Cry's fallen cap – Cry didn't even know it had fallen off his head that time – and creeps around the dining room table where the dead zombies lie, not wanting to come any closer to them. Pewdie seems fascinated by the state of the bodies on the floor at first before something changes in his face and he turns away, looking sick.

"Geez, bro," says Pewdie, motioning towards the bodies without looking at them. He is playing with Cry's cap in his hands, absent-mindedly smoothing the brim with his thumbs. "You weren't kidding when you said that you've got a talent with killing these things." His voice sounds oddly faint, as if uneasy.

"I didn't," Cry corrects in a matter-of-factly tone. " _You_ made the assumption. And anyway, it's not really a talent. It's a necessity. Sometimes you've got no choice. Sometimes you've got to do it."

And that's when he realises that he and Pewdie never once killed any zombies when they were travelling together. He's heard from Pewdie once while they croon out bad pop songs in the car that the latter had only killed one zombie and that was mostly by accident. He knows that Pewdie has been surviving all this time by keeping to the roads and avoiding civilisation so of course he wouldn't have seen an actual killing in real life. Of course it makes sense now that he looks a little unnerved after Cry took care of the two zombies on the floor. It's no wonder that Pewdie seems a little wary of Cry now judging from the way he's leaning his body away as if he can feel that raw, brutal power radiating off Cry's form.

Cry wants to assure him that he's sorry if he'd given Pewdie a shock, that he may have overdone it with the killing. Except, he really isn't that sorry at all. These aren't like the videogames they'd played before. This is the harsh reality they live in now. This is not the time for Pewdie to be upset over this. This is the time for Pewdie to face the facts.

"Man up, bro," Cry says sternly. Although he can barely see Pewdie through his blood-stained glasses, he's standing close enough for Cry to discern his changing expression from dazed to attentive. "Did you think that we're going to spend the rest of our lives just sneaking past these bastards? Even if we could, how long can we keep that up? These things are like dormant bombs. How long can you tiptoe around them without setting them off?"

"I _know_ that," says Pewdie again, his tone sounding insistent yet his eyes continue to look uncertain, unfocused. Cry just shakes his head, assumes that the other man is still unconvinced.

"Look, I did it because I had to," he begins, his tone firm and persistent. "Because we needed a place to stay for a bit. If you still think we can pull off this ninja stealth thing and go rest upstairs, how do we even _do_ that when we know for a fact that there are two sleeping zombies down here who can wake up at any moment if one of us screws up? Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I fucking _know_ that, Cry," Pewdie snaps this time, looking harried and impatient at the repetitive nature of Cry's words. "I get it, okay. All of it. We need to kill these sons of bitches sooner or later and when it comes down to it. I get it. _Geez._ "

"Then why do you still look like that?" Cry asks. He can't help but furrow his eyebrows into a frown.

"Like what?" Pewdie asks.

"Like you just swallowed something you shouldn't have," Cry tries his best to describe the expression. It's not really that accurate though. If he had to guess again, he thinks Pewdie looks rather shaken by the event, maybe a little bit bewildered by the reality of it, and possibly a little bit scared of Cry. Cry gets that vibe from the way Pewdie just can't seem to keep his eyes on him for more than five seconds, as if he can't stand to look at him.

Noticing this, Cry feels incredibly self-conscious of himself and of his actions and as he struggles to find words to get the other to stop doing that, the silence between them stretches on until it becomes too awkward to continue their line of conversation. So they stand there in disconcerted stillness over the sprawled, mutilated zombie bodies.

Then, another gloop of sloppy, congealed blood drops off Cry's hair and splatters onto the lens of his glasses, into his eyes.

"Shit, _gross_ ," Cry tears his glasses off his face to clear the disgusting gunk out of his eyes with a dry portion of his sleeve. He's aware now of how sticky and dirty he is, not to mention how spent and tired he feels after his adrenaline rush had died down completely. What he wants right now is to clean himself up and rest and he's not doing any of those things until they get rid of these two bodies.

"Help me out," Cry instructs, putting their air of discomfiture aside and propping his shovel against the wall. "We've got to toss these things out of the house. You take one of them and I'll take the other and we drag them outside. Come on, let's go," he adds when Pewdie doesn't move.

Cry leans down and takes hold of the ankles of the older zombie, waits until Pewdie puts his cap and crowbar on the dining table and comes over to retrieve the legs of the younger one, and then begins to pull. There is a nasty squelching sound as the remains of the zombie's skull slowly peels off the floor and – ugh, holy shit, that's _disgusting_. He can see the smashed bits of brain poking out of that demolished head, mixing with the fragmented pieces of bone and blood. Then there is the _stench_ , like a rotten mix of decayed flesh, the sharp tang of iron and something else he can't quite identify. For once, he realises just how extreme his blows had been if it can reduce a human head into something as repulsive as this.

"Cry…" Pewdie's voice thankfully pulls his gaze away from the gory sight and at once, Cry recognises the sickly green pallor that Pewdie's complexion has taken as the latter stares at the zombie Cry is holding on to.

Alarmed, Cry lets go of the creature and reaches out to reassure him that he understands how he is feeling, how nauseating and sick the sight is making him – and realises with a start that _he_ is feeling that right now. He shuts his eyes tight and fights off the urge to retch, to gag; forces himself to swallow down that wretched wave of nausea that's rising in his throat. He doesn't want to throw up. He _won't_. He'll fight this. He can get through this. Breathe, Cry. Fucking _breathe_. Count to ten, thirty, forty, fifty. _Breathe_.

When he opens his eyes, feeling a little more composed now, he sees that Pewdie has disappeared from his side and is currently rifling through the cabinets under the sink. When he straightens up, his face still a little pallid and sickly, he holds up a roll of black trash bags and some dish-washing rubber gloves for Cry to see.

"How the hell is that going to help?" Cry asks. He doesn't want to look at the zombies again because he's afraid he can't handle it the second time. He used to be so unperturbed by the sight but now, after he is forced to move them and sees exactly how gruesome it actually is, he's disgusted and sickened by the view. So no. No, he's definitely sure he can't handle this the second time.

"We have a shovel," Pewdie says simply, and pauses like the last time to let Cry figure out the rest of his plan.

And Cry does – and it's one of the things he remembers that makes him and Pewdie such a good team. He puts two and two together – the shovel, the gloves and the garbage bag, and knows what they're supposed to do. Except this will require some teamwork and a lot of will not to give in and throw up.

Pewdie already knows all this of course because he mutters, "I am not going to like this. Not one bit. Not one _bit_. Goddamn it." He's already busying himself with unrolling the bin bags and tearing a couple of them off. He passes Cry without looking at him, averts his gaze away from the bodies and drops two of the bin bags over the mutilated zombie heads, successfully covering them entirely from view with the black sheets. Cry is able to look at the bodies now without flinching, but the thought is not entirely reassuring. He knows that underneath those bin bags, the heads are still there, still battered to hell.

As Cry picks up his shovel from its place against the wall, Pewdie pulls on the rubber gloves and for one short second, their gazes connect and a quick message passes between them – _Ready?_ And then Pewdie is picking his way through the pool of blood and gore surrounding the covered zombie head, wincing as he tries to keep his balance on the slippery gunkand crouches over the head end of the body. Cry can see the uneasiness in his face as he prepares his gloved hands, ready to wrap the head with the bin bag the moment Cry scoops it off the floor with his shovel.

"Just do it quickly," Cry offers the advice as he positions himself by the side of the head, hoping his words have some sort of reassuring effect on Pewdie, who is strangely silent right now. The last time they touched a dead zombie body was when they were pulling the barber shears out of its skull at that deathly strip mall. Cry remembers just how noisy Pewdie had been as they worked together at the extraction. But here, Pewdie's clenching his jaw, letting not one disgusted whine out of his mouth and his eyes seem unfocused, full of dread and reluctance for their task ahead.

Cry takes a deep breath through his mouth – he isn't going to do that through his nose if the whole place smells this bad – and tucks the tip of shovel blade under the black bin sheet, feels the not-quite solid remains of the smashed skull, and scoops upwards. There's that horrible wet, squelching sound again and Cry fights off the image of a gruesome head peeling off the floor and the wave of nausea that's threatening to come back to him. On the floor, he sees Pewdie squirm in disgust.

He thinks he's managed to scoop a good portion and lifts it slightly off the ground and Pewdie instantly acts, wraps the head and shovel blade loosely with the bin bag. Once secure, Cry carefully pulls his shovel back, the stained blade slipping out of the black sheet, and watches as Pewdie gathers two ends of the bin bag and tie them together in a tight knot. Once done, he drops it back down to the floor and immediately stands up and the bin bag splashes onto the puddle of blood, staining his shoes.

They allow themselves a few seconds to rest and prepare themselves again before they turn their attention to the other zombie. Again they work quietly, only because Cry thinks talking aloud might make the sickening feeling even worse, and when they're done, they try dragging the bodies and despite struggling with the heavy weight, it's easier, so much easier than before to do this without looking at the gory mess. They haul each dead corpse across the floor and leave a bloody trail behind, like red tyre skid marks, and dump them outside in the backyard. When Pewdie slides the door shut behind them, Cry goes to tug the thin lacy blinds over it to block their view outside. That's when they both breathe a sigh of relief.

For a brief moment, Cry allows a sense of security to wash over him before he's up and lifting his shovel again. He actually feels Pewdie's bewildered gaze on him, feels the question in his eyes.

"We need to check the entire house," Cry says as a way of response. "Secure the whole place, check for any more zombies, barricade exits in case something wants to come in, that sort of thing. We do that first, then we can go rest."

"…R-Right. We should go check upstairs first," Pewdie responds after a few seconds, his voice a little shakily as he picks up his crowbar. Again, his glance is wavering, unable to stay on him for too long. "Should we split up and cover more ground?" he adds almost absent-mindedly and Cry frowns, appalled by the idea.

" _No_ , we stay together," he berates him. "What did I tell you about splitting up? We don't do that. We'll be safer together. Come on." He's a little annoyed at how unfocused Pewdie is and wants to try snapping him out of it, but he's sick of nagging so he lets it go and decides to give the other some time to calm down on his own.

They creep upstairs, the steps on the staircase making a slight creaking noise, and reach the landing where a shard of sunlight shines through a round framed window, lightening up the length of the hallway. One of the glass panels of the window has been swung open, allowing ventilation into the house. Four doors lie on either side of the landing, two of which hang open and they decide to go through the one nearest to the stairs.

It's a typical sort of bedroom that either of them could own. Posters of cars with the occasional attractive scantily-clad lady are plastered on the walls, a mini fridge stacked next to a desk with a dusty computer, some DVDs and a couple of car magazine issues heaped into a pile on a shelf, some clothes and other knick knacks lie scattered on the floor, a baseball jersey hangs off an office chair which had tipped over and fallen on its side on the carpet. There is also a collection of knives lined up on the unmade bed and a cleaning cloth followed by a bloody baseball bat propped against the bedframe.

There's another door inside the room and Cry nudges Pewdie to it and they cautiously push it open. In one glance, it's a bathroom with blue and white tiles, a boat-patterned curtain covering a bathtub and shower head, a porcelain toilet tucked between the bathtub and the sink. They both stiffen at the sight of something moving and realise that it's nothing but their reflections in the bathroom mirror.

When Cry and Pewdie stare at themselves properly for the first time in weeks, it's a shocking sight to behold. What is looking back at them from the mirror are two strangers resembling a pair of vagrant homeless men, bodies skinny, clothes frayed and dirty, their faces weary and weather-beaten, jawlines dark with stubble, their hair wild and unkempt. Cry can't believe that one of the pair is actually himself, that the face and clothes hidden underneath the blood and guts are actually his own. He's especially struck by the unfamiliarity of the red-rimmed eyes that are staring back at him behind blood-stained glasses because that gaze is hard and intense. It is like the gaze of someone who has seen so many things that he regrets seeing, that he wishes he never had.

"Holy fuck," Pewdie breathes beside him and his face in the mirror twists into that of astonishment.

Cry blinks out of his dazed trance, trying not to glance at his reflection again and reminds himself not to forget their priorities. Leaving Pewdie's side for a while, he turns his attention towards the bathtub where a shower curtain is drawn over it, hiding it from view. He approaches it cautiously, one hand gripping his shovel, and slowly pulls the curtain to find nothing inside. He does, however, discover a small square window above the tub and when he climbs in and stands on tiptoe to look through the window, he sees the backyard below him and beyond that, the road they had travelled from.

A sudden gurgling noise coming from behind him startles him from his observation and Cry stumbles unsteadily on the balls of his feet, trying to regain his lost balance. When he hears Pewdie swear something in Swedish, he turns around to find that the other man had jumped back from the sink, staring at it in alarm. About a second later, the tap gives a visible shudder and a jet of water spits out of it in a gushing stream and begins to fill the bowl of the sink.

"Oh my god," says Cry, unable to believe what he's seeing as he climbs out of the tub and takes a step closer towards the sink.

"Water," Pewdie exclaims softly, looking even more bewildered than he is. "I didn't – it was an accident. I turned it on by accident but… Hey, we've got running water. How…? How in the hell is that even possible?"

The question makes Cry think about what he'd seen a minute ago so he turns and climbs back into the bathtub to peer out the window once more and study the backyard underneath them more carefully. There are two steel water storage tanks outside that they walked past and hadn't noticed.

"The water is supplied directly from the water tanks outside," Cry explains as he steps back out of the bathtub and turns on the tap, watching thin sprays of water sprinkle out of the shower head before quickly shutting it off. "I guess we can clean ourselves up with this but we need to be careful not to use a lot. We don't know how much water is left in those tanks outside. Come on, we should check out the rest of the house."

The rest of the house lies in the clear for them as there is nothing living or undead hidden behind any door, around any corner, under any piece of furniture or inside any compartment. After they finish blocking some of the exits with heavy furniture, they linger at the bottom of the stairs together.

"You should go and take that shower," Pewdie recommends and his tone is the steadiest it's been since they'd entered the house. "You look like you need it more than me," he adds with a motion of his head and Cry can't help but agree. The blood in his hair had hardened, making it stiff on his head, and he knows he smells like one of the undead.

Cry gives Pewdie a stern look and says, "Keep your guard up and don't go outside, okay?" and waits until he gets a nod of confirmation before he makes his way upstairs back to that first bedroom. He slips his bag off his back and enters the bathroom, making sure to keep the door unlocked in case he needed a quick escape. After peeling off his bloodied clothes, he steps into the bathtub, draws the curtains and turns on the tap full blast.

Once he walks out of the bathroom freshly scrubbed, brushed and shaved, he finds to his surprise a pile of fresh clothes neatly placed on the floor right outside the bathroom door which he knows wasn't there before. He guesses this must have been Pewdie's work. The other man must have come by and went to search for something clean for him to wear. Cry feels a warm, tingling feeling in his chest at Pewdie's considerate gesture and wonders where the latter might be now. After pulling the clothes on, he realises his body has never felt so tired and heavy before.

Cry sweeps the knives, cleaning cloth and baseball bat off the bed, lets them all clatter onto the floor and he throws himself on top of the bed sheets, instantly falling straight to sleep the moment his head hits the pillows.

By the time he wakes up, he finds himself buried under pillows and blankets and it's warm and comfortable here. It's almost as if he's back home, as if he's just waking up to his once-normal life on an early evening, ready to spend the next couple of hours playing videogames. What a distant dream that all feels now and it hurts, this nostalgia, this yearning for the old, better days. He'd give anything to have them back again, to escape this terrible reality he's in, to go back to being himself before all this zombie hell happened. But for now, he allows himself to bask in the peaceful, drowsy silence, on the soft springy bed, nestled in the warmth of the bed sheets.

Except he doesn't bask under the sheets that long. Because he can now smell an amazing aroma that's seeping through the door of the bedroom, making his mouth water and his stomach grumble in response. Food! He thinks. Is that actual _cooked_ food? Is someone cooking somewhere? How is there cooked food? Where is the _food_?

The next thing he knows, he's out of the bedroom and is following the scent like a sniffing dog on the trail of a criminal. It leads him to another bedroom with a little office at the far end of the hallway, near the framed window. When he steps inside, he finds that it seems to have been converted into a mini-kitchen.

The bookcase which once displayed an impressive collection of books has been cleared out to make space for packet, bagged and canned dry food items which now fill a couple of its shelves. There are also bottles, jars of sauces and seasoning pots tucked into another shelf, a couple of Tupperware containers piled up in a different one and finally, some pots and pans shoved into the shelves at the bottom. There's a coffee table that's laden with a holder full of cutleries, plates and a box of tissues on one end while over at the work desk, a camping gas stove sits on its surface, connected to a fuel container. There's also an opened can of tomatoes and mushrooms, a stained dishtowel, a bottle of olive oil, a salt shaker, a chopping board and a knife placed next to the stove on the desk.

Pewdie is standing there by that stove, stirring something in a pot with a wooden spatula and it's something of a bizarre sight for Cry to see. It's not because of the knowledge that Pewdie can cook which baffles him, it's the act of cooking itself. It's shocking to see such a normal day-to-day act like cooking to occur in a crazy, distorted world like this.

Cry doesn't have time to mull on this further because the attractive scent that's coming from the pot distracts him from his thoughts, drawing him closer until something in the aroma tickles his nose, making him sneeze. Pewdie hears it and jumps, whipping around in alarm to find only Cry there.

" _Yeeey_ , don't… don't _do_ that," Pewdie whimpers as he clutches his chest to calm himself down. Cry notices that Pewdie has cleaned himself up too – he's wearing a new set of clothes, his gaunt face now smooth and clean-shaven and his hair is back in its lustrous, fluffy state.

"Sorry," Cry apologises, forgetting Pewdie's easily startled disposition. He peers over Pewdie's shoulder and recognises the long noodle-shaped pasta inside the pot. Cry tries to remember when he had last eaten pasta or a cooked meal and finds that he can't. Instead, he stares hungrily at the hot food and he can feel his body shake with anticipation and impatience for it – because dammit, he's never felt so _hungry_ before – but luckily, Pewdie's already done with cooking. After turning off the stove, he lifts the pot up, makes his way towards the coffee table and places the whole thing there. Once he spoons a decent portion onto two plates, he hands one to Cry and they both sit cross-legged on either side of the coffee table and dig in without another word.

Cry thinks he's never tasted anything so delicious in his life even after he burns his tongue when he shoves a forkful of hot pasta into his mouth, even when he finds that the flavour leans a bit too much on the tomato, even when the mushrooms feel rubbery and unpleasant on his tongue when he chews on them. He doesn't care for all of that as he lets the taste explode in his mouth before swallowing most of the food down without chewing much. After he cleans his plate in a matter of minutes, he's scooping out a second, third, fourth portion from the pot, falling onto it like a lion on a juicy piece of meat and shovels in forkfuls until he forgets for a while that Pewdie is there, eating opposite him. He's only focused on satisfying the hunger that has gnawed on him for so long and relishing the experience of finally eating a home-cooked meal.

It's only when he finishes licking his plate and peers into the pot to find it empty that he finally settles down to breathe. He suddenly remembers that Pewdie is there when the latter sets down a can of coke in front of him.

"How long was I out?" Cry asks, popping the cap off the can and chugging down a few mouthfuls, wincing slightly at the drink's lukewarm temperature.

He watches as Pewdie's mouth quirks upwards into a half-grin, "Do you really want to know? Well, you slept for about a day and a half, I think. Or maybe it was a little more than twenty-four hours. Basically, you were out for a long while."

"Wow," says Cry. "I must have been really, really tired. Even more than I thought."

"You feeling better though?" Pewdie asks, sipping his own can of coke.

"Yeah, yeah, _loads_ better, thanks," Cry answers. "But, ah… what about you? Did you get any sleep the whole time I was out?"

Pewdie shrugs nonchalantly. "Yeah I did. Maybe every four hours or so… uh, but _only_ when it's safe, of _course_ ," he adds as if he's saying this for Cry's benefit, like a child telling his parents what they wanted to hear. Cry frowns in response, wanting to address this because it's the first time he notices this carefulness in the other's tone, as if he is choosing his words carefully for Cry to hear. It puts him in mind of poking a sleeping bear on the side and hoping that none of the prods would wake it up from slumber.

Unfortunately, Pewdie catches the frown on Cry's face and assumes something of it because he suddenly falls silent, looking away from him as he jiggles the coke can in his hand.

They're quiet for a bit, sipping their lukewarm drinks, and Cry decides to distract himself from this awkwardness by looking around the room.

"What happened here?" he asks casually, breaking their silence. He motions towards the bookcase and camping stove in particular with the hand that's holding his can. He sees Pewdie's face brighten a little at his words.

"It's now a kitchen," Pewdie says proudly. "Found the stove downstairs in the basement. You wouldn't believe the kinds of shit these people have. The cans of food and stuff are from the real kitchen and I moved the ones that are still good up here because it smells so fucking bad downstairs. With this amount of food and the cooking stove and the running water, we can stay in here for a couple of days at least. It's great, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it certainly is," Cry agrees.

Somehow, they fall into another uneasy silence and Cry realises for the first time the nature of their present relationship, how it seems to be slowly spiralling downwards ever since they'd lost the car. He doesn't understand why it's suddenly become so awkward between them, why Pewdie is reacting like this towards him, why Cry gets frequently annoyed when in Pewdie's company. He thought that they were good after their reconciliations back when they were travelling through wilderness and yet, for some reason, it doesn't seem like that is still the case ever since they entered the house. Could it be that Pewdie may still be affected by Cry's violent display yesterday? Could that be the factor that is causing this uneasy air between them lately?

He doesn't have time to come up with a decision to make things better between them because Pewdie gets up and begins collecting the dirty cutlery into his arms, stacking them on top of each other. "Come on," he says invitingly. "Let's clean this stuff up in the bathroom."

Cry silently complies with the invitation and they spend about ten minutes washing up in the much larger bathroom which lies opposite the 'mini-kitchen'. They're quiet when they do this but it actually isn't so bad having Pewdie scrub the pots and plates with soap and try to rinse it in the too-small sink bowl while Cry, on the other hand, wipes the items dry with a face towel that they found under the bathroom sink.

It's weird, what they're doing – these two ordinary guys who have grown used to travelling and running away from zombies now engrossed in a simple, domestic household chore like this. For Cry, the rough, calloused hands which had not long ago gripped a shovel used to kill a pair of undead creatures are now handling delicate porcelain. What a strange world they live in now, he thinks to himself. It's weird how normal things like this no longer feel that normal anymore.

Once they finish, he and Pewdie retreat back to the 'mini-kitchen' and place the cleaned items into the shelves of the bookcase. Cry feels the pleasant sensation of accomplishment at their task as he stands before it to inspect their effort. Then Pewdie nudges his forearm gently with his hand and motions towards the stairs, "Come downstairs. Let's go clean up that kitchen."

"Wait, what?" Cry asks but he can't do so any further because Pewdie has already left the room and Cry can hear his footsteps moving down the hallway. He has no choice but to follow him down the staircase.

The kitchen and dining room area are still left in its eerie, deathly state and Cry sees the bloody trails and footsteps marked along the floor, a frightening sticky, red path leading towards the sliding glass door that's covered by the thin lacy curtain. Pewdie sidesteps this path, heads towards the cabinet under the sink and begins to take out a variety of cleaning agents and utensils. Cry can't do much but gape at what the other man is doing.

"You're kidding, right?" he finally says in disbelief. He wants to laugh at all of this because he thinks that Pewdie has lost it. Whatever shock the other man had undergone when he witnessed Cry's killing display must have driven the sense out of his head. How can Pewdie be thinking of something as unimportant as _this_ when they should be doing something else that's related to prolonging their survival?

Pewdie shoots him a look, "Actually, I'm pretty serious about this. I don't feel comfortable with all this blood downstairs, man. Also, it's pretty _unhygienic_."

"It's not our concern," Cry protests, motioning towards the bloody trails. Also, since when is Pewdie this serious anyway? He isn't sure what to make of it. Either Pewdie is fooling around or something might really be wrong with him. "Seriously, Pewds," Cry continues. "Why do we have to clean this up? It's not like we're going to be here long. We're only staying for a couple of days anyway. It's kind of pointless."

Cry's words make Pewdie merely shake his head slightly. The other man had just extracted a plastic bucket and mop out of a cupboard somewhere and is currently filling the bucket with water from the tap.

"It _isn't_ pointless," Pewdie says, frowning slightly at the bucket he's holding. "We're really lucky to have food and gas and running water here but we can't just do whatever the hell we want. We should respect it – this house, I mean – for giving us shelter. I mean, it makes sense, right? The least we can do to make up for intruding is to clean up our own mess. It's the only right thing to do after all." He briefly glances back up and meets Cry's gaze, "Do you… get what I'm saying?"

Cry does, he _does_ get it. What's more is that he's so surprised by the considerate, respectful nature of that reasoning. It's such a humanly thing to think about – that moment when you feel obliged to clean up your own mess while staying over at someone's house out of respect for your hosts. Cry is surprised that after all they've been through, after surviving this game for so long by following a different set of rules, Pewdie still has it in him to retain some form of human courtesy. He still puts some value on the little things that used to matter. Unlike Cry who has been hardened by his experiences, Pewdie is still safe, not yet broken by the harsh, ugly reality they live in now.

Cry hopes that Pewdie will never let go of that human aspect of his in the future days to come.

So he nods in response to Pewdie's question, braving a smile to let the other know that he agrees with him, that he understands. He comes over and picks up a plastic bottle of floor cleaner from the sink and asks, "Okay. So where do we start?"

It takes most of the afternoon to clean the kitchen and dining room. With some combined effort, they lift the heavy dining table to tug the stained carpet free and toss it out of the house. Afterwards, it takes them almost three buckets of water and soap to get rid of the bloodstains on the floor with Pewdie insisting they disinfect it with some diluted Dettol once it's clear of the blood and guts. It smells so much better now once they swab the floors with two coats of Dettol and leave it to dry, even if it does fill the rooms with the strong, chemical scent of disinfectant. Pewdie eyes the refrigerator once they finish and goes back to the cabinet under the sink to extract the roll of black bin bags.

"Are you ready for this?" he asks and at first, Cry isn't sure what he's really talking about.

"Ready for what?" Cry replies in return. To be honest, he feels ready for anything at the moment. It's good to be able to do something again apart from just running away, even if it is performing a simple household chore like this. He's starting to understand why some people enjoy cleaning so much. The reward for it is splendid – he feels the satisfied state of accomplishment that one gets after knowing you'd finished tackling a dirty, untidy room and restored it back to its beautiful, clean state. He follows Pewdie's gaze on the refrigerator, puts two-on-two together – fridge and bin bags, and purses his lips thoughtfully.

"What do you think is in there?" he asks.

"Maybe a mutated monster," Pewdie says jokily. "This fridge hasn't had electricity in a while. Maybe for a whole month, I dunno. Who knows what sort of things have grown in there? You might want to go get yourselves some gloves or something. You really don't want to touch the stuff in there with your bare hands."

It turns out it's so much worse than they thought. The moment they pry the fridge door open, it's completely unrecognisable inside. They can just discern some shapes of what used to be food on the shelves but the whole thing – the whole fucking interior of the fridge – is covered in a thick, disgusting, fuzzy coat of black, grey and green mould.

Pewdie snaps the door shut with a thud. His face has taken on a faint greenish tinge. Cry, on the other hand, had clamped a hand over his own mouth, forcing himself not to gag at the sickening sight.

"I think we should just throw this whole thing out," Pewdie says faintly, swallowing hard. "Nobody needs it anymore."

"How…?" Cry tries to say, his voice muffled behind his hand. He wants to say how it could be possible for that much mould to form from rotten food stored in the fridge, but he can barely hold his nausea back.

"Can you estimate how many months have passed since all this crazy shit started?" Pewdie murmurs, having guessed what Cry had intended to say. "Geez, I don't even remember myself. Maybe less than four months? Maybe more? It _does_ get pretty hot down here at times, especially if you don't crack a window open. Maybe the guys who lived here didn't bother touching the fridge since they can't use it anyway without electricity. So time passes and it got worse."

Cry manages to swallow his nausea down and puts his hand away from his mouth so he can take a deep breath to compose himself. "Let's just get this thing out of here," he suggests. "Just looking at it is making me sick again."

They feel much better once they dump the fridge onto the backyard with the zombie bodies. They mop up the dusty square of space left by the refrigerator and disinfect it afterwards. The kitchen and dining room look fantastic now, especially the floor, which shines from the sunrays coming through the windows.

As they stand there and inspect their work, Cry feels a sense of warm camaraderie return to him – that same feeling which had filled his chest from the time when he and Pewdie pulled themselves out of their wrecked car. Perhaps whatever uneasy thing between them has dissipated like the blood trails on the floor. Maybe Cry had been overthinking it when he assumed that there was a downward spiral in their relationship. Maybe it's just a bumpy hurdle that they'd easily jumped over.

"Good job, Cry," says Pewdie beside him. "We make a great cleaning team," he adds and casually lifts his fist at him without looking and Cry almost smiles, his lightened heart warmed by the gesture, and bumps the fist without another thought.

"We should get paid for this," Cry supplies heartily as he withdraws his hand and hears Pewdie snort with laughter.

"Yeah, we'll make a good business out of it too," the other man says, a half-grin breaking out of his face. "People are too busy worrying about zombies to clean their houses. We can do it for them in exchange for gas or water or home-cooked meals."

"That's a great idea," Cry says enthusiastically. "The dirtier the house, the more demanding the job, the bigger the meal."

Suddenly, he realises he's hungry and his stomach acknowledges this thought by releasing a growl that demands for attention. Pewdie shoots him a look of amusement.

"I was thinking we could have beans or something tonight," he suggests, eyebrows wiggling knowingly. "Or we could throw everything in a pot and make some sort of stew."

Cry opens his mouth to say he's fine either way but his stomach gets there first and rumbles loudly in agreement. He rolls his eyes in response, aware that a creeping heat is making its way up his neck.

"There's no time to lose," Pewdie says in acknowledgment, tugging him by the sleeve towards the staircase. "That stew isn't going to cook itself. The sun's going to set soon. We can't do this shit in the dark."

" _We?_ " Cry echoes in confusion as they ascend the stairs, their footsteps making the steps creak.

"Yes, _'we'_ ," Pewdie responds a little impatiently and casts him a look from over his shoulder. "You think I'm the only one who's going to do all the work here? It's about time you learn the tricks of the trade, bro."

 

For the last twenty-four hours, Pewdie has been trying hard. He has been trying hard to assure himself that they have been lucky to get this far, to look at death in the face and escape from it a few times, from their run-ins with zombies, climbing out unscathed from a car crash and surviving in the wilderness for weeks on end. They're lucky that they managed to last this long because they're aware of how to play by the rules of this chaotic world now; they know that sometimes it's necessary to do things in order to survive, even if it resorts to violence and killing. He knows that. He _gets_ it already.

But what Pewdie doesn't understand after all that assurance is why he actually feels differently compared to what he thinks. Whatever reason that the rational part of him presents, whatever thought he repeats in his head to convince himself that it makes sense, they don't seem to coordinate with his own feelings. Cry had noticed this already, seen the discrepancy between Pewdie's words and the emotions which had peeked through his expression.

Pewdie knows where his thoughts stand because he's aware of the fact that Cry has killed zombies before. He's seen the latter's work back when they reunited at that gas station store, so he shouldn't be surprised by what he'd seen or feel alarmed by what Cry is capable of. Except that he is. Or rather, he doesn't know what to feel about it, doesn't know what he _feels_ about Cry. Pewdie thought he knew the other man – after all, they've been travelling together for the past few months – but after seeing the brutality of his kills and the mixed emotions that were blazing in the other's eyes, he just doesn't know anymore.

Which is why he's been unsure about how to act around Cry lately. He finds himself saying his words even more carefully now because he doesn't know whether the wrong thing might trigger something he would regret. He's aware that when he looks into Cry's eyes, he expects to see that swirl of emotions raging inside and he can't keep his gaze on him long enough to find out. He knows that Cry senses his wariness and it does sort of explain the state of things between them. Pewdie's uncertainty and occasional loss for words seem to be causing this uneasy air between them, making them frequently fall into awkward silences.

"These are tough times for you both," says Map when Pewdie sits down to rest after he finishes arranging the cans, packets and bags of dry food he brought up from the kitchen onto the bookshelves. "You were lucky to escape from the worst of it in a car. Cry had to endure it out there by himself for those first three weeks. Remember when you thought he seemed different the first time he joined us? How tense he was that he jumps at every sound? Three weeks trying to adjust to this reality can change a guy. After what you saw before, you might think that Cry seems to have become a different person but that's only because time and experience have changed him. Just like it has done to you too."

"Maybe you're right," Pewdie murmurs in response. "I shouldn't act weird around him. He'll think something's wrong or… I don't know. The point is, it won't do us both good if this keeps up."

So after Cry wakes up and they finish eating their pasta, Pewdie tries to clear this awkwardness between them and he knows the best way for them to communicate easily is if they find some task they can do that allows them to work together. It works magnificently, their combined teamwork to clean the blood trails off the kitchen floor and remove the refrigerator from the house, and he knows that they've reached the point where they're okay again when Pewdie casually offers a fist bump to the other, almost expecting him not to respond, but he's so, so glad when Cry does in the end.

After a heavy dinner of stew which leaves Cry with a full stomach and a drowsy head, Pewdie lets the other go back to his room to rest while he decides to pass the time by picking up an LED lantern he found earlier and continuing his exploration in the basement downstairs. When he emerges a few hours later, it's night time outside the house and he climbs the stairs to find the landing lying in complete darkness. He eagerly knocks on Cry's door, not caring if the other might still be asleep, because they have _got_ to do this thing that Pewdie is going to propose and he's sure that Cry will like it.

After a couple more knocks, he can hear a muffled curse, some clumsy footsteps stumbling across the room followed by a _thud_ as something bumps against the door. It then swings open to reveal a groggy, bleary-eyed Cry who is squinting at him with no glasses.

"Cry!" Pewdie exclaims with a grin. The LED lantern he holds is the only source of light in the whole house right now and it illuminates Cry's tired face. Pewdie's not sure if Cry is squinting or glaring at him but either way Pewdie knows that the other man is only annoyed with him now because he had been forcefully woken up from his slumber.

"Pewds?" Cry murmurs as he rubs his eyes, trying to look alert. "What is it? Is it trouble?"

"No, no," says Pewdie in a low whisper and he doesn't know why he's doing it. It could just be the darkness and silence of the house that's making him do that. "I got something to show you. Look what I found!"

Ecstatic with excitement, Pewdie lowers the lantern to let it shine on the items he's carrying in his other arm. A small cool box swings from the inner joint of his elbow and an old-fashioned board game is tucked underneath his armpit. He sees Cry squint at the two things for a long while before the latter breaks the stillness with, "Wait, let me go get my glasses. I can't see a goddamn thing in this darkness. Bring that light in, will you?"

The room is pitch black when Pewdie looks in but as he steps inside and shuts the door, the light from the lantern turns out to be strong enough to illuminate almost half of the room. He can just see the unmade bed, the knives and baseball bat on the floor, the office chair now put upright, the mini-fridge next to the desk, the dusty computer as well as a poster of an attractive woman sprawled across the hood of a sleek sports car on the wall.

Cry retrieves his glasses somewhere from within his tangled bed sheets and hastily puts them on. He's still holding onto the temples as he stares at the items in Pewdie's arm, trying to discern them and Pewdie decides to be helpful by setting down all the items he's holding onto the floor and popping open the lid of the cool box while he's at it.

Cry's eyes widen, "What–?" he says and there's a twitch as the corner of his lip stretches into a smile.

Pewdie reaches into the cool box and lifts out one of a couple of six packs of canned beer stacked inside and sets it on the floor. He grins widely and says, "We are so getting drunk tonight."

"You know that could be potentially dangerous," Cry says with a raised eyebrow and although Pewdie doesn't know whether this may be a precursor to a harsh scolding or whether Cry is just joking around, he can't help but tense slightly in response. He wonders, have I done the wrong thing?

"But as long as we stay quiet and don't attract attention, I don't see why not," Cry suddenly cuts in as if he senses Pewdie's hesitation. "I mean, I guess we deserve a break. Not think about the apocalypse for a while."

Pewdie relaxes, seeing that it's a false alarm, and plops himself on the floor, kicking the bloody baseball bat away with his foot. "Come and sit down, Cry," he says invitingly, patting the spot on the floor next to him. "And let me buy you a drink– I mean, _get_ you a drink."

"Wow, are you trying to hit on me?" Cry asks, trying not to laugh as he sits down and helps himself to a beer can instead of taking up the offer. To Pewdie's surprise though, Cry extracts an extra can from the pack and hands it over him.

"What have you got there?" Cry asks, motioning towards the board game with a nod of his head. His fingers are busy pushing the cap of the beer can open. Once he's done, he gulps down a few mouthfuls.

"Can't you see?" Pewdie says, popping open his own can to take a sip – _ugh_ , it's lukewarm – and pushes the item closer to the light. The cover is dusty and very faded but you can just about see its colourful illustration.

" _Snakes and Ladders?_ " Cry says, huffing a laugh of disbelief as he tugs the board game closer towards him. " _Snakes and_ fucking _Ladders?_ Are you kidding me? Out of all the games you could've found in this house, you chose for us to play _this_ one?"

"Hey, it's a _classic_ ," Pewdie protests. "You know you love it. Shut up and open that box and let's play. I want to be that red token. Come on, hurry up."

"Alright, alright," says Cry heartily, opening the box to take out the contents inside. Except, a cloud of dust explodes into the air and hits their faces, making both Pewdie and Cry recoil and sneeze all at the same time.

"This thing is really old," Cry sniffs, unfolding the board which emits a crackle as he straightens it. He sets it on the floor next to the lantern and hunts around for the tokens and dice. "Right, you wanted the red token right? Here's a green one. Guess I'll use that."

"I got an idea," Pewdie says, pulling the cool box towards him to take out the rest of the six packs. "Let's do a drinking game. We play this board game and then every time we go up a ladder or go down a snake, we take a drink. We don't touch our cans unless we get a ladder or a snake, okay? We do this as many times as we want. We've got like a bazillion cans to go through."

"I've never heard of a drinking game like that," Cry says.

"Don't question me," Pewdie says demandingly. "New rule: every time you question me, you take a drink. Go, Cry. Go drink."

"Hey, how come this rule only applies to me?" Cry asks but complies with the order anyway, taking a large gulp of his can and sighing loudly despite the tepid temperature as he pulls it away from his mouth.

" _Drink_ ," Pewdie points towards Cry's can. "You asked another question. Take another drink."

"Let's just fucking _start_ ," Cry grumbles after he chugs down another mouthful and snatches up the die. "I'll make sure you get drunk enough so that I win this game."

Pewdie doesn't know how long time passes as they play and drink. The only indication for it is the number of beer cans they consume and leave lying around. They become so engrossed in their game that it almost feels like the good old days when they played co-op videogames together, complete with their own crazy commentaries. The longer they play, the more beverages they consume until he and Cry begin to explode into giggles or randomly break into song for the sole reason that they just feel like it. Pewdie savours this feeling, however nostalgic and sad it actually is, and wishes things could somehow go back to the way they were once they are found and saved.

"Don't worry about it, Cry," Pewdie mumbles into the fifth or sixth round of their game, lazily waving a dismissing hand in the air after he moves his token up a ladder and takes a drink. "Don't even worry about it."

"But that doesn't make _sense_ ," Cry slurs, tossing the die onto the board and moving his green token across it. "You don't just climb up ladders, you can go down them too, right? Like, you can't do that with a snake. You hit a snake, you only go down– _Whoa_ – you…you went down a snake. Go take a drink."

"I'm still a few squares higher than you," Pewdie points out, taking a mouthful of beer and moves his token downwards. "Bet you can't top that, bitch."

Cry lets out another breathy giggle and says, "Just you wait. I'm– I'm coming up there and kicking you back down."

"Just roll the dice, Cry," Pewdie says.

"It's not a _dice_ , it's a _die_ ," Cry corrects, with an empathetic tilt of his head. "A die is one dice, a dice is two dice – no, wait. A dice is one and a die is two."

"Don't worry about it, Cry," says Pewdie cheerfully once more. "Stop thinking. Cease all thinking mechanisms and just roll the fucking dice."

"Oh okay," says Cry with a shrug and Pewdie snorts in laughter as he watches the other roll the die. It comes up to six dots and Cry whines when his green token hits a snake and he is forced to move it three rows below Pewdie's. At Pewdie's knowing look, Cry grudgingly lifts the beer can a little too quickly to his mouth so that when he tries to swallow a mouthful, some of it spills down his chin.

"Whoa, you – ha, ha – are you okay there?" Pewdie asks, snorting and heaving and gasping with laughter like a braying donkey as Cry splutters and waves his hand at him dismissingly.

"'M fine, I'm fine," he wheezes and goes to take a drink again. "Why aren't you rolling the dice– the die? It's your turn after all."

Pewdie feels the pleasant buzz from the alcohol fill his head like air to a balloon, making him light-headed and empty. For once, his thoughts are unburdened by anything related to zombies or the disordered world outside. Instead, he finds everything around him fucking hilarious and he can't believe that they've been living and running away in fear all this time because it seems so distant to him right now, everything they've gone through trapped in a dreamy haze. He also doesn't understand why he'd think that he and Cry's relationship seems to stand on unsteady ground. How can that be? They're getting along well right _now_ , laughing and drinking together. How can he possibly worry about the world that has ended out there when he and Cry have not?

He thinks he's reached the point in his state of intoxication where his head feels heavy and the room tilts and sways in his vision. The next thing he knows is that he's looking at the ceiling and his head sort of hurts. He thinks he must have collapsed and hit it at some point but he doesn't have any recollection of it. His thoughts are fuzzy and disorientated, his vision blurry and he's not sure if he's still talking or singing or laughing or not.

He must have passed out at some point because when he opens his eyes, he sees the ceiling again and it's still night time. It shouldn't have been more than five minutes since he'd drifted off into brief unconsciousness. Although his head still seems too heavy to lift, his whole body feels as light as a feather and his mind is startlingly clear. He's never felt so relaxed, lying spread-eagle on the floor like this with numerous empty beer cans scattered all around him under the glow of the LED lantern. He basks in this quiet, peaceful air about him and thinks. Thinks about his life before, his life now, his life after.

"…Hey, Pewds?" comes Cry's quiet mumble from somewhere beside him.

Pewdie turns his head a little and sees Cry lying on his back like him but his eyes are half-open, staring at nothing before him. The game board is the only thing which separates them from each other.

"I want to ask you something," Cry continues to murmur almost sleepily. "That time, with those zombie brothers… Were you… Were you scared of me when I killed them?"

Pewdie doesn't know what to answer at first because he's busy trying to understand Cry's words. He slowly recalls the scene a little more than a day ago, the moment they enter the house and shut the sliding door, the moment when Cry flies towards the undead creatures and bashes them to death, the moment Pewdie sees his wild, terrifying eyes.

"Were you scared of me?" Cry asks again, his voice sounding quiet and hesitant.

"Yeah," Pewdie murmurs admittedly. "Yeah, I was at first. You were… you looked weird, man. But I get it. I get why you had to do that."

"You shouldn't… you shouldn't let it get to you," says Cry in an attempt to sound reasonable although it does come out a little nervous instead. "Whatever it is you gotta do, you gotta act fast. Don't hesitate even for a second. Sometimes you need to be that way to make sure you don't get caught off guard."

"Yeah, I know all that. I _do_ ," Pewdie says insistently. "But…"

"I get it," says Cry in a sympathetic tone. "You still need some more time to accept this."

Pewdie hums in agreement, finally realising it to be the case. He sees it clearly now, that despite telling himself what he should think, it is really his feelings which speak the truth about himself, "Yeah, maybe."

"Don't take too long," Cry advises grimly. "You have to suck it up and move on. You shouldn't let things like that distract you."

"Hm, I'll try," Pewdie says in response and they both fall into a brief pause. Pewdie feels a little relieved now after acknowledging his true feelings, so much so that he's bold enough to say, "Hey, I want to ask _you_ something now and I won't bullshit this either. But… are we still good? I mean, for the past few weeks in the woods and all, we haven't been doing well. I mean, we _did_ and then it just seems to go down again. I don't know but... I'm sure you'd noticed how weird it feels lately when we're together."

"Yeah, I have," says Cry with a sigh and it sounds like he's been expecting this to come up sooner or later. "I notice I get a little… cranky when I'm with you sometimes. I don't talk to you as often and it looks like I'm mad at you for something you did. I don't… I don't mean any of that. Whatever weird mood I was in at that time or whether it happens again in the future, it's not because I don't want you here with me… so, yeah. I just want you to understand that."

Pewdie finds himself beaming at the words, at the effort that Cry is putting in for opening up to him. He makes a show of sighing dramatically in relief and says, "That's good to know. I was starting to think you didn't like me anymore. I know I can get pretty annoying at times and I'm sorry for that."

"Yeah, yeah, you _do_ get pretty annoying," Cry doesn't hesitate to confirm that, the bastard. "But then, aren't we all? Sometimes we can't help it, right? Sometimes we can't help but get on each other's nerves. Circumstances just make us act that way. We just got to pull through it and then we'll be okay."

"What about you though?" Pewdie asks hesitantly. "Are _you_ doing okay?"

"What _about_ me?"

"That was some pretty gory stuff you did back there. I mean, I _did_ mention you looked a little weird after all."

Cry lets out a sigh and drearily murmurs, "You mean, you think I might have gone psycho? I guess it explains why you wouldn't look at me anymore. And even when you did, you looked at me like I was going to kill you with the shovel or something."

"Geez, you're not a psycho, Cry," Pewdie counters that assumption with a frown. "It never even crossed my mind that you could be one. Or will be one. And besides, I know you won't kill me either."

"And how can you be sure of that?"

"Because I'm far too fabulous to be killed."

"Dude, I'm being _serious_."

"Well, isn't it obvious?" Pewdie sighs. "It's because I believe in you, Cry."

He's met with a few seconds of surprised silence after his words and he hears a rustle as Cry moves his head a little to look at him. Pewdie doesn't see the expression on the other's face because he's busy noticing the glow-in-the-dark star stickers plastered on the ceiling above the bed.

"Listen. There's… something I've been meaning to ask for a while," Cry murmurs, turning away from him to stare back at the ceiling. "It's been bugging me for weeks but… maybe you already know or something but you know you… you never once talked about the car crash."

"Of course I didn't," Pewdie easily says in a matter-of-factly tone. "There was no need to talk about it. We got out and we didn't get hurt. That was all that mattered."

"But aren't you…" Cry says uncertainly. "Aren't you _mad?_ That I crashed it? That I lost it? I mean, didn't Bluey mean a lot to you?"

"Of course she did," Pewdie says emphatically and he can hear the sadness in his own voice. "If it weren't for that car, I wouldn't even survive a _day_ in this hell."

"So… you _were_ mad?"

"I didn't _want_ to be mad," Pewdie corrects him, aware that they're stepping onto sensitive ground. For the past few weeks, this topic was supposed to be something unmentionable between them, but now it seems that they are far too caught up in the moment in this quiet, peaceful atmosphere to stop. "But what's done is done. There really isn't any point in bringing it up anymore. It's not your fault after all. I mean, the last thing I want is for you to feel guilty about something that wasn't really your fault."

"W-Wait, lemme get this straight," Cry slurs this time not because of the alcohol in his system but because he sounds genuinely confused. "You purposely avoided mentioning the car because you didn't wantto make me feel…bad about myself?"

"I told you it wasn't a big deal," Pewdie says. At Cry's hesitation, he adds, "Look, I feel like I'm also to blame for causing that crash. I mean, I was being such a bully to you. I pushed you too hard. I shouldn't have done that and it was wrong of me. I know you don't want to talk about… about certain _things_ , and I should respect that. So I'm sorry for what happened."

" _I_ should be sorry," Cry's voice comes out very quiet that Pewdie barely hears it. His words sound small, scared and a little helpless. "I fucked up a couple of times. Like I did in that first raid. And then when we lost the car. I did stupid things that almost got us both killed."

"No, you are the one who kept us _going_ ," Pewdie points out fervently, suddenly deadly serious because he needs Cry to understand this. "You got us this far. You're the one who found that radio. You're good at picking up the best supplies that would help keep us alive. You stay up all night just to keep us safe. You're the one who brought us to this place. And you're a good navigator too. If weren't for you– if– if we never met, I would've just driven around in circles for weeks and eventually go fucking crazy. I wouldn't have made it out of those woods without you, man. I wouldn't have lasted this long if it weren't for you. You've done more good for this team than all the bad things combined."

After that passionate outburst, they both fall into a mutual silence for different reasons – because Pewdie feels a little embarrassed for saying all those things so intensely like that and Cry looks like he'd fallen speechless at his words. Despite this, their silence isn't like their earlier, awkward ones. Instead, it's a silence full of quiet contemplation. After a whole minute of stillness, Pewdie thinks Cry has drifted off to sleep but he's mistaken when the other man stirs and lets out a long sigh.

"You…" Cry murmurs, sounding as if he's struggling to find the right words to say. "You're a good guy, Pewds."

For the second time since Cry had thanked him aloud for pulling him out of the car, Pewdie finds himself a little flabbergasted at Cry's words because they hit him straight in the heart, filling it with an emotion that he can't describe. He's glad that the LED lantern doesn't illuminate the warm flush that's already spreading across his face.

He decides to cover up his embarrassment by scoffing dramatically and saying, "Of _course_ I'm a good guy. That's what I keep _telling_ everybody but people don't seem to see my goodness. Did you know that I did a random act of kindness by releasing an egg back into the wild? Like an actual egg. If that wasn't an act of kindness, then I don't know what is. Don't you think so too? Don't you agree with me? Eh, Cry? Are you–?"

When Pewdie gets no answer, he's suddenly aware that Cry is breathing slow and steadily beside him so when he turns his head, he finds that the other man had drifted off to sleep to the sound of his voice. He quietly watches Cry's chest rise and fall in accordance to his deep breathing and thinks about his outburst earlier on, about how Cry needs to understand how much he's done for them both. He hopes that the message had hit home because it certainly has done so in Pewdie's case and he's never felt this grateful to have Cry by his side all this time, to have Cry push him on and on even when Pewdie sometimes feels close to giving up. All they need to do is to keep this up, this constant reassurance that they keep it together until they reach salvation at last.

As he stares a little longer at his sleeping companion, Pewdie notices that one of Cry's arms is draped over his stomach and his other one is carelessly stretched out across the game board between them. His fingers are loosely curled inwards, almost resembling a fist.

Pewdie slowly reaches out and gently brushes his knuckles against Cry's fingers before he pulls back his arm and looks at the ceiling, at the glow-in-the-dark stars. About an hour later, after he falls asleep to Cry's slow, rhythmic breathing, the LED lamp sitting between them runs out of battery and blinks into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Dammit, Pewds. You're such a sweetie sometimes.)
> 
> I raised a couple of points in this chapter, particularly about the state of Pewdie's character and the fact that he, unlike Cry, still retains a bit of his humanity amidst the chaos of this apocalypse. I wanted Cry to acknowledge that in Pewds's suggestion when they clean the blood off the floors because he thinks it's "the only right thing to do after all".
> 
> At the same time, I thought that it was about time they have one of these more serious heart-to-heart talks and address the state of their relationship and that it's not going so well lately. I also thought it's about time Cry brought up the unspeakable topic of their car crash and share his guilt about it. Finally, I wanted Pewds and Cry to not only realise how much they need each other in order to function as a good team, but also what they mean to one other on a more personal level. Why? Because I love character appreciation so I will write about it as much as I want.
> 
> Feedback - comments and kudos alike - are very much appreciated, as always. Do leave one if you enjoyed this so far (So how do you feel after ploughing through this monster chapter?)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much appreciation to Azeran for her comments and for the kudos for last chapter.
> 
> My summary of this one: 
> 
> Oh yes? Oh no.

**08.**

The next two days go by without much activity, not counting the morning where they wake up to the worst hangover and spend almost an hour hugging separate toilet bowls, regurgitating everything they consumed the night before. Cry can’t remember the last time he got drunk or tipsy, nor has he felt so relaxed and at ease, wrapped up in the simple pleasure of playing games with friends. For the first time in a long time, he forgets about the crazy world outside the house, about the zombies and their escapes from certain death. He doesn’t think about anything except the good food, the good rest, the good drink, the good game and having a good time.

That is, until he lies back in the dim glow of the lantern and stares blankly at the ceiling. He thinks about what he and Pewdie are now, what had become of them; remembers the look of shock on the other’s face when he steps back from the dead zombies, dripping in blood and guts. He blames his alcohol-induced state for giving him the boldness to speak his own thoughts aloud and the next thing he knows, they pour out of him in an uncontrollable stream of raw and honest vulnerability, all of it for Pewdie to listen to.

And then there is Pewdie, who continues to astonish him with his actions, his way of thinking and his words. The moment when the other man asserts his belief in him, tells him how much Cry has done for them, Cry finds himself not knowing what to say, not knowing how to react. He merely falls into flabbergasted silence and feels some emotion that’s indescribable in words swell tremendously in his chest, touching his heart. His throat tightens all of a sudden, restraining his voice and he barely manages to murmur out the only thing he can say to Pewdie. The only thing he knows to be certain and true about the other man.

From then on, he and Pewdie have been getting along really well after the night of their heart-to-heart talk. Cry notices that Pewdie seems more at ease with him now, no longer as wary and cautious of his words as he had been before. In return, Cry decides he will forgive any of Pewdie’s antics and foibles because it’s the least he can do to thank the other man for forgiving him for his mistakes and for reminding him of his own self-worth.

During those two days, Cry looks through a window on the side of the house which faces the front lawn and sees the light of the setting sun gild the rest of the housing estate in a golden-orange glow. It’s a fairly large area, this square plot of urban land in the middle of grassy plains, lined with identical houses which are fashioned so close together that the only thing that acts as their only divider is a wooden fence separating each home. The only other indication of the houses’ individual differences is the way each one decorates its own lawn or the number of cars parked in their driveways. About a couple of dozen zombies stagger in an almost drunken manner up and down the street of the neighbourhood that he and Pewdie are in. Cry can’t discern how many there are but he knows that the longer they stay hidden from these creatures in this area, the more urgent it becomes that they leave the shelter of this house before they begin to draw unwanted attention.

It’s a partly cloudy afternoon on the fifth day of their restful stay and Cry has been sitting quietly in his room, trying to scrape the dried crust of blood off the blade of his shovel. Just as he removes the last crumb, Pewdie bursts through the door in a frenzy, his hair flying wildly on his head before he bounces onto the bed, exclaiming, “Look what I found in the basement!”

He then brandishes a dusty, unopened packet of four AA batteries in the space between them.

Instantly, Cry’s eyes widen and his heart quickens in shock and delight. “Oh my god,” he says in disbelief as he seizes the packet like it might disappear before his eyes. It’s funny how it’s easy to find these things lying around in videogames than it is in real life. After searching for so long, it feels great to have finally found what they’ve been looking for. Or rather, it feels fucking _fantastic_.

“Pewds, you are a wizard,” Cry huffs out in laughter, ecstatic as the other man at the find. He feels a sudden, wild urge to grab Pewdie and hug him senseless but he holds himself back by tearing the packet apart so he can take the battery cells out instead.

“Hah, of _course_ I am,” Pewdie scoffs proudly in response, puffing his chest out. “And people say _I_ don’t go and pick up enough items in my gameplays. There are actually a lot more batteries downstairs just so you know. We’ve got plenty to keep us going for a few months! So, come on then. What are you staring at those for? Where’s that radio walkie-talkie thing? I think we’ve got more than enough for it to work now.”

Cry quickly digs into his backpack and extracts the CB radio from one of its inner pouches, sliding open the battery compartment and slots the cells into the remaining gaps inside.

 _Finally,_ Cry thinks, feeling a wave of excitement rise in his chest so strongly that he almost can’t breathe. This is it. We can finally call for help.

The moment he turns the knob to switch on the radio, the device beeps into life and he and Pewdie both simultaneously lean closer to it in mutual anticipation. They don’t hear anything at first so Cry begins pressing random buttons and turning knobs with his fingers, trying every one of them out. It doesn’t take too long to figure out what each button does and when Cry presses on the _Scan_ button in particular, they wait and watch as the numbers on the screen flash from 1 to 40 as it searches for any active transmissions. They hear nothing but continuous white noise when Cry decides to manually scroll through each individual channel once automatic scanning doesn’t result in anything.

“Say something,” Pewdie suggests. “Maybe someone can pick up our message.”

When Cry presses the button on the side of the radio which he’s sure must be _Talk_ button, the white noise stops and he says with a hopeful tone into the microphone, “Hello? Is anyone out there? Can anyone hear my voice? Hello?”

After he keeps doing this for another five minutes with no elicited response, Pewdie pulls the radio out of his hand and gives it a go, “H-h-how’s it goin’ bros?” he announces loudly like he’s addressing the viewers of his videos. “My name is _Pewww_ dieCry. And we’re here stuck in a zombie apocalypse, so can someone get the fuck over here and save us already?”

Three minutes later, Cry wrestles the radio back because Pewdie’s announcements begin to take on a not-so-serious nature (“‘Ola? My name is Consuela and I’m a helpless cleaning lady with great, big, bouncy titties. If you would like my service, call back this number”). Stifling his laughter at Pewdie’s ridiculous antics, Cry gets up and starts pacing around the room while surfing through each channel with a press of a button. When he still gets nothing and begins to feel increasingly dispirited, he decides to head outside.

“Try sticking it out the window,” says Pewdie suddenly, referring to the framed window on the landing outside. He had been watching Cry pace around for five minutes as he searches in vain for an active signal and had followed him out of the room. Cry wants to tell him that this isn’t the time to mess around but the other man cuts him off with, “Although it’s pretty far out, I think I see some sort of radio tower somewhere in the distance, in that direction over there. See that? If there are still survivors out there in that town, they would think the same thing about calling for help using that, no?”

“I guess you’re right,” Cry hums, impressed by the notion.

He decides to try it out and holds the radio out of the gap in the framed window. After going through the same procedure again, he gets nothing but screeching, buzzing white noise so when he pulls back, he’s fighting off his frustration. They _earned_ this, he tells himself. They waited a long time for this moment so why isn’t the radio working? No, no. This isn’t the time to get mad. Let’s just take a break and think about this. Now, what could be the problem?

Sighing, he leans back against the wall and thinks hard. Beside him, he feels Pewdie pry the radio out of his hand so he can tamper with it. Cry’s gaze lands on the radio’s antenna and a thought hits him, dissipating his initial disappointment.

“It isn’t long enough,” he points out in realisation, tapping the end of the rubber antenna – which is only about eight inches in length after all – with a finger and Pewdie nods enthusiastically, as if the thought too had occurred to him the same time that Cry had.

“Yeah, it makes sense,” Pewdie says. “This thing looks like it can’t cover more than three or four miles in radius. It makes sense that we can’t seem to pick up any signal or send out our own. There’s nobody around where we are. At least, nobody alive.”

“That just means we’ve got to move on,” Cry surmises. “It won’t do us good to stay here when we finally got this thing working. We need to get to higher ground or something. Or go find a better, longer antenna to replace this one. Basically, we’ve got to keep moving until our radio picks up some sort of signal somewhere.”

“Aw, and I was getting used to this place already,” says Pewdie in a wistful voice, accompanying it with an overdramatic sigh. “It’s been a good couple of days too. I’ve never felt any more relaxed than this.”

“You do know we can’t stay here forever, right?” Cry reminds him because he’s not sure what Pewdie means when he’s saying that.

The other man just waves him off good-naturedly and says, “Of course I do. Still, we _do_ have to enjoy the moment while we can, Cry. Not just rest and recuperate so we can get ready to go the next day, right?”

Pewdie does make a fair point and it’s surprising that the thought hadn’t occurred to Cry since they got drunk a couple of nights ago. He almost feels a little ashamed for forgetting to enjoy the little things once in a while.

“Should we leave tomorrow?” says Cry tentatively. “Or do you want to stay a little longer?”

Pewdie’s mouth twists into a thoughtful pout. “I don’t see why not. I feel pumped enough to go actually. I mean, food is still going okay but I guess I can use up what we have and make packed meals or something for the road. It’ll be a shame to waste it all.”

Cry nods in acknowledgment and adds, “We should pack what we want to bring with us and have an early night. Make sure we get ready to go first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Wow, it’s like going on a school trip or something,” Pewdie says with a grin, patting him lightly on the shoulder before heading towards the ‘mini-kitchen’.

 _More like a school trip back into hell,_ Cry can’t help but point out silently as he watches Pewdie’s form disappear behind the door.

When dawn breaks the following morning, they’re up and ready to go, backpacks full of new supplies, some extra clothes, dried food and packed meals. There’s a quiet chill in the air once they step outside the backyard and make their way towards the main road. However, they freeze in their tracks when they spot something on their intended path. A group of zombies are gathered together, gorging themselves on something that’s lying on the side of the main road. In the faint dawn light, they can’t see what it is that the creatures are eating but Cry spots one particular zombie wrestling a half-eaten human arm away from the others. He finds the crook of Pewdie’s elbow and lightly pulls it and they back away from the busy group, eventually returning to the house through the sliding glass door.

“Should we wait until they’re done?” Pewdie asks him as he peers through the lacy curtains covering the glass door.

“I don’t want to linger around, knowing those things are awake out there,” says Cry. “It looks like it’s a no-go at this end. We should find another route. The streets outside must eventually lead out of the housing estate and back to that main road, right? We’ll try that way. Let’s check the front windows for zombies. We go when it looks safe.”

The street they’re on is relatively empty when he and Pewdie emerge through the front door of the house and look around. Nothing so much stirs or makes any sound except for the soft scraping of their boots against the pavement and their quiet, uneasy breathing.

“Where did all the zombies go?” Cry hears Pewdie whisper beside him, peering warily over his shoulder every five minutes or so.

“I think we saw them just now,” Cry realises suddenly. “All of them must have wandered outside and attacked whoever was on that road. We should hurry before they start coming back.”

They immediately follow a lane that turns around a corner and leads to another street lined with identical houses. It takes most of the morning to move up each row of houses, keeping out of sight of anything that moves, and Cry is astonished by the number of zombies – both dead and undead – scattered about the streets or blankly lounging around inside their homes. They’re very fortunate to find that none of the zombies in these neighbourhoods are awake so Cry picks the best route through this lethargic undead crowd, keeping as much distance from each staggering body as they can, occasionally pausing and backing away when one of the creatures wanders too close to them. Most importantly, they keep silent and take their time to creep past them so for those few hours, they are invisible to the undead.

When he and Pewdie finally reach what they think is the ninth or tenth row of houses, they find the oddly empty lane blocked with a collection of wrecked cars piled on top of one another. Skid marks and blood trails stain the tarmac and concrete pavements, and there are mangled body remains lying sprawled over this pile like broken doll parts. It looks as if these cars had been in a mad scramble to get out of the estate fast and ended up colliding into each other. There doesn’t seem to be any safe way across this mountain of shattered glass and scrapped metal to reach to the other side.

Just as Cry begins to devise another plan, he feels Pewdie pull his sleeve for attention and follows the latter’s pointing finger towards one of the houses. The building in question looks more abandoned than the rest of its siblings because its white paint is peeling off, the front lawn is practically a mess of weeds, dried leaves and tall, wild grass, and the driveway is caked with enough brick dust, dirt and debris to show that no car had parked there in years. Furthermore, all the windows seem to be covered in newspaper, blocking any view into the interior of the house. The only thing which seems interesting enough to have caught Pewdie’s attention is the rickety front door, which hangs slightly open as if someone had forgotten to shut it properly before they left.

“Are you crazy?” Cry hisses, staring at Pewdie, who shrugs with a sheepish smile in return.

“We could go through the back door of that house to reach the other side,” Pewdie explains, trying to be as quiet as Cry. “I know this looks like the house from hell but it doesn’t seem like we have any other choice, right? Besides, it looks far too dangerous to climb over those cars anyway.”

“Well, we could always go through another house that doesn’t look half as dangerous as this one,” Cry points out.

“And wake up the zombies that could be inside?” Pewdie gasps in mock-horror. “You’d rather pick a perfectly, good habitable house than one that looks like no one’s been inside for years? Now who’s the crazy one here?”

“ _Shh_ – alright, _alright_ ,” Cry huffs exasperatedly because they shouldn’t even be talking out in the open like this. Their voices could easily attract attention, especially if they start bickering uncontrollably on the spot. Cry sighs, adjusting the shovel strap on his shoulder and says, “Just follow my lead and try not to scream at anything, okay? Close your eyes if you have to.” He then turns and leads the way towards the abandoned house.

The front door emits an eerie _creak_ as Cry slowly pulls it open and a cold blast of air hits him, bringing with it the smell of dust, mould and mothballs in its wake. When they step inside, the only light source seems to come from the weak sunlight that’s filtered through the newspaper plastered on the windows facing the street. He can just about make out a collapsed table in pieces on the floor next to the remains of a shattered lamp and a chair with ripped cushions. Dust and debris cover the floor while thick cobwebs drape over the peeling walls around them. Beyond this front room lies the rest of house in complete darkness. For a moment, Cry and Pewdie stand there in what little light remains from the outside and stare warily at the gloom before them.

“Okay,” Pewdie’s voice comes out as a squeak as he swallows nervously. “This place is pretty creepy.”

“We’ll be fine,” Cry reassures him, pulling the door back in but leaving it hanging open as before so that a small needle of sunlight pierces the gloom of the house. He doesn’t feel so comfortable being in a shut-in, derelict place like this so he pulls out his flashlight and flicks it on. “Come on,” he says and takes a step into the darkness.

Apart from the front rooms, the rest of the place lies mostly bare and empty. There is a hole in the ceiling, its edges mottled with dry rot, and chunks of plaster litter the floor underneath it. They pass an empty doorframe with no door and find an old, worn-out teddy bear wearing what seems like a knight’s helmet and a suit of armour sitting innocently in front of it, looking as if it had been waiting for them all this time. It’s one of those souvenir teddy bears you can buy anywhere when holidaying overseas. Pewdie takes one look at it and kicks the damn thing away with his foot and it tumbles in a cloud of dust and vanishes into the darkness.

“I don’t _trust_ you,” he grumbles and turns to catch up to Cry.

When they reach the staircase, they find some sort of cupboard tucked underneath the stairs like the one in the _Harry Potter_ books, its little door hanging open to reveal some things propped on the shelves inside. Tempted by the items, Cry immediately heads towards the cupboard to investigate, crouching inside the small space and begins to cautiously pick up each dusty object and study it in the glow of his flashlight in case some turn out to be useful for him to take.

“Are you serious, Cry?” he hears Pewdie’s voice behind him as the latter shines his own light into the compartment, illuminating its dusty, dirt-caked interior. “It’s an abandoned house. I don’t think there’s anything worth taking in here.”

“It doesn’t hurt to check,” Cry shoots back but unfortunately for him, Pewdie’s words prove to be true and that there is nothing here worth taking after all. The items turn out to be useless trinkets – little miniature figures and broken toys. He ducks out of the little room and straightens up and Pewdie shines his light onto his own face to show Cry a look of disapproval.

“You’re not thinking of checking upstairs, are you?” Pewdie mutters with a roll of his eyes.

“What if I am?” Cry says.

“We’ve got enough supplies for now,” Pewdie says, trying to sound reasonable. “You don’t need to be this…uh–”

“Thorough?” Cry finishes for him.

“Yes, that,” Pewdie nods with an exasperated sigh. “Come on, man. Let’s just get the heck out of here.”

As they pass the staircase and explore deeper into the house, Cry can feel the atmosphere become so uncomfortably thick and stuffy that he almost feels a little claustrophobic at the lack of ventilation in this place. He doesn’t need to say this aloud because Pewdie, as always, beats him at mentioning the obvious first.

“I feel like I can’t breathe in this place, Cry,” Pewdie murmurs breathlessly beside him. Cry can’t see his face because both their flashlights are directed in front of them but he is, however, able to make out Pewdie’s form amidst the darkness. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea after all,” Pewdie rambles on nervously. “I was wrong. I mean, what was I _thinking_? This place is just creepy as fuck. It reminds me so much of that asylum in _Outlast._ Or any of those other horror games I played. Wish we brought a video camera just so we see in the dark. Maybe we should go back where we came from. Find some other way.”

“We’ve come too far to turn back now,” says Cry with a frown, trying to discern Pewdie’s expression in the darkness. “Besides, I think this is the kitchen area, right? The back door should be around here by n– _Whoa!_ ”

He doesn’t get to finish his words because his foot suddenly slides from underneath him and he falls forward, landing heavily on the ground on his hands and knees. Waves of pain sail up and down his limbs from the impact, paralysing him and making him collapse on his side with a loud, slippery _thud_. Blinking in shock at the glare of Pewdie’s flashlight on his face, Cry realises he’s lying on something cold and sticky and slippery. And Pewdie, the _bastard_ , is standing above him, shamelessly braying with laughter at his fall, his voice piercing the thick, stale silence of the house. Immediately, Cry recovers, feeling ashamed and annoyed at what had happened to him. He notices that his cap, his flashlight – which must have turned itself off by accident when it hit the floor – as well as his shovel have all fallen out of his grasp and are lying somewhere on the ground around him.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Pewdie asks above him as he tries to stifle his laughter. “Sorry, man. I shouldn’t have laughed. That looked like it hurt. Are you alright? Did you sprain or break anything? Because that would be _bad_.”

“No, I’m _fine_ ,” Cry snaps, squinting a glare at the other as he struggles to shakily hoist himself onto his feet, waving Pewdie’s offered hand away. “Just… get that fucking light out of my face, will you?”

“Sorry,” the beam of light lowers from his eyes and falls onto the floor and for a moment, they both stare at it in stunned silence.

“There’s blood on the floor,” Pewdie points out the obvious because he’s always been good like that. “ _Eugh_ , that’s disgusting.”

Despite the fact that his hands and knees are still thrumming in pain, Cry takes the opportunity to crouch and study what he had been lying on. The floor underneath them is actually made up of marble tiles – some of which are still intact, some are cracked and in pieces while others are missing entirely, leaving empty square-shaped gaps on the ground. The blood on these tiles seem to have mostly dried up but it still feels sticky and slippery to the touch. In the glow of Pewdie’s flashlight, Cry can see on the bloody puddle a line like a skid mark where his foot had slipped on as well as his handprints and knees where they had touched the floor.

Cry suddenly wants to laugh out loud at the blatant, cruel irony of his life right now. He can’t believe he’d been so careless not to look at where he was going. Of all the things to slip on, it had to be a pool of blood. He remembers laughing uncontrollably when Lee Everett, the protagonist from _The Walking Dead_ game, had slipped on a pool of blood like Cry himself had done.

“You sure you okay?” Pewdie asks again from above him. “If that’s the case then let’s go find the backdoor and get out. And this time, you should watch your step.”

“Well, I’ll keep that in mind,” Cry mutters, straightening up and wiping his sticky, bloody palms on his pants in distaste. He suddenly remembers he’d dropped his items during the fall. “Swing your light around,” Cry tells Pewdie and the other does. “Oh, there’s my flashlight. I’ll go get it and look around for my hat and shovel and then we’ll go.”

He leans down to pick up his flashlight, switching it on and a ball of light leaps out to illuminate his surroundings. Sweeping it across the floor, he finally spots his shovel some distance away from where he’d fallen down and steps over the pool of blood to go and retrieve it.

“Hey Cry?” It looks like Pewdie is crouching over the blood too, studying it with his flashlight. His voice sounds thoughtful as Cry leans down to pick up his shovel. “Isn’t it weird that there’s blood on the floor? I mean, who could’ve made–”

But Cry does not hear the rest of Pewdie’s words. Because when he straightens up, the blade of his shovel scrapes loudly against the broken tiles and his light shines onto a shrivelled, skull-like face which springs out of the darkness and slams him onto the floor. The impact makes him drop his shovel, his glasses are gone from his face, and his flashlight flies out of his hand and spins far away and out of reach. He cries out in fear at its loss.

The thing on top of him feels far too skinny and dry and bony and _wrong_ and he can hear it snarling above him, hear the clacking of teeth, feels it clawing at his face and neck with stick-like fingers, and he does what he can do to hold it back, to push it away from him. The worst part is that he’s freaking out because he can’t see anything in front of him, it’s far too dark in here and _fuck,_ where is the light, he can’t _see,_ he can’t see _anything,_ that thing is going to bite me any second and I can’t do anything about it I’m fighting this thing _blind_ please help me please _help_ I’m scared I’m scared I’m so scared I can’t see I’m blind in the dark I’m going to die I’m going to get bitten oh fuck oh _fuck_ why is this happening where the hell is _–_

 

Pewdie knows something is wrong the moment he sees Cry’s flashlight fly out of his hand and hears a clatter of a shovel and a thud as something heavy hits the floor. He hears a familiar panicked yell, hears the snarls of something inhuman and quickly stands up from his crouch.

“Cry?” he says in alarm, sidestepping the pool of blood, races towards the noises and frantically shines his flashlight, trying to see what’s happening. For a flash of a second, he’s frozen in shock at the sight before him – at the sight of Cry, whose glasses are missing from his face, who is whimpering and thrashing wildly under something that used to be human but is now nothing but skin, bones and dry, peeling flesh. Only clumps of hair still remain on its head that has slowly eaten away, revealing flashes of yellowed skull underneath. Its face is the most terrible thing to look at. He catches a glimpse of thin and sallow cheekbones, the sunken milky eyeballs, the two gaping holes where its nose used to be and its blackened, rotten teeth.

When the beam of light hits them, Pewdie sees Cry’s eyes widen in horror as the latter sees exactly what he’s fighting against and a terrified sob escapes his lips. The noise seems to alert the creature and its bony jaw snaps open and lounges for Cry’s neck and Cry fights back, desperately shoves the skull-like face away with his hands and his fingers dig into the sagging, flaking cheeks at the effort. As he struggles to hold it back, his wide, tearful eyes flicker over at him and Pewdie recognises the wild panic, the terror in that glance.

“ _Pewds_!” Cry manages to yell out amidst his whimpering and gasping, amidst his struggles against this skeletal zombie that is trying to take a bite out of his face with its snapping jaws. “Get it– get it _off_ me! I can’t – Fucking get it off! Pewds! Pewds, _please–_!”

Pewdie jerks out of his stupefied trance and tugs his crowbar free from where he’d tied it against his backpack, stepping closer towards them and feeling light-headed and dazed all of a sudden. In the darkness, he realises he’s shaking so much and his thoughts have become an incoherent scramble in his head. He’s shaking so much that he’s fumbling with the items in his grasp, trying not to breathe too quickly, trying to hold back his panic, trying hard to stay focused.

But he realises in alarm that it is somehow much harder to balance his flashlight in one hand and swing a dangerous weapon onto a moving target with the other. It’s hard because as he shines the light on the grappling bodies, as he lifts his crowbar, ready to swing it down, his vision suddenly doubles and he feels ready to collapse on the spot. Goddamn it, he’s panicking, hesitating, gasping for breath – because Cry and the zombie are moving around too much and he’s screaming in his head for them to _stop_ it, stop moving, I can’t see where I’m hitting, what if I hit Cry by mistake what if I hit him and he gets hurt what should I do, _no,_ no just do it come on it’s easy just swing the crowbar onto the zombie’s head it’s right thereright _there_ Pewdie why are you not moving why are you just standing there fucking shaking don’t panic don’t pass out Pewdie because Cry needs you now keep it together oh fucking hell _do_ something Cry is just _there_ you fucking idiot he’s going to get bitten save him Pewds save him _now_ move damn you fucking _move_ kill that thing kill it now kill it _kill it–_!

The thoughts screaming in his head are suddenly cut off when Cry manages to wrestle his legs underneath the zombie and pushes it off him using the feet he had planted onto its chest. The creature lets out a guttural croak of surprise as it is ripped away from its prey. When it lands on the floor in a disturbing clatterand snap of brittle bones, Cry scrambles up from the floor in a frenzy, snatches the crowbar out of Pewdie’s sweaty hand and pounces onto the zombie, pinning it down with his knees.

The creature’s head snaps up in attention, the swollen, milky eyeballs glistening revoltingly in the glow of the flashlight. Its horrible jaw swings opens, letting out another guttural croak, and before it has a chance to bite, Cry drives the sharp end of the crowbar down into that yawning gap with both hands until it pierces the back of its throat and bursts out of the soft part of its head to dig into the floor. He rips it back out only to stab it again through the eye sockets, making the eyeballs burst into jelly-like mush. He stabs it through what’s left of its nose, its cheeks, its forehead, its jutting chin, its temples, everywhere he can reach, through every available piece of peeling skin it has left, until its terrible face is riddled with so many holes like those of a beehive and it’s the most disgustingly, horrible thing that Pewdie has ever seen.

And Cry doesn’t _stop_ , doesn’t stop even when the zombie gives a final shudder and lies still under him. He doesn’t stop even when it’s obvious that the creature is already long past dead. He’s still stabbing the damn thing in the face with the crowbar, punching holes into it with a fierce viciousness unlike the one Pewdie witnessed with the two zombie siblings. Because there is no bloodlust in Cry’s eyes as he strikes this time, there are only the flashes of wide-eyed, hysterical fear.

“C-Cry?” a breathy whisper rasps out of Pewdie’s tightened throat. He’s alarmed by how Cry doesn’t seem to show any signs of stopping and cautiously edges his way nearer to the other, extending a shaky hand to reach for Cry’s shoulder. “H-Hey, bro. It’s okay now. You can stop. It’s already dead, Cry–”

He jerks back in surprise when Cry suddenly turns and lashes out to him, violently smacking his hand away. He can’t see Cry’s face because his flashlight is directed on the floor but he does hear the metallic sound of the crowbar hitting the floor, sees Cry pushing himself onto his feet. The next thing he knows, Cry’s blood-stained boots are storming towards him and Pewdie backs away in alarm, quickly lifting his flashlight up to shine it onto Cry’s face and he’s shocked to find it looming just inches away from his.

And Cry – Cry is _livid_ , his face contorted with rage and his eyes, which are no longer hidden behind his glasses, are _blazing_. Blazing with an intensity that Pewdie has never seen before.

“ _What the fuck was that_?” Cry all but screams it at his face. “ _What the fuck were you doing just_ standing _there? You left me to fight on my own and you just_ watched! _You just stood there and watched me about to get bitten! What the fuck is_ wrong _with you? Why didn’t you push that thing off of me? Why didn’t you kill it? Why did you just leave me there?”_

Pewdie is too shocked by what is happening. He feels intimidated by the lack of space between their faces, by the aggressive nature of Cry’s yelling that he fumbles with his own words and weakly offers, “I… didn’t leave you–”

“ _Don’t you fucking_ lie _to me_!” Cry roars. “ _You stood there and didn’t do fucking anything! You left me to deal with it on my own_! _Goddamn it! Just what is going_ on _with you?”_

“Look, I didn’t–” Pewdie tries again and he really doesn’t like this – this feeling as if he’s being backed up against a wall like a trapped animal about to be torn into pieces. He wants to explain himself but Cry is making it so hard for him. The weight of his glare is pinning him down, making him feel so small and vulnerable and the harsh, aggressive words feel like bullets hitting him by the dozen, leaving him dazed and confused. He can’t– he doesn’t know what to do to defend himself from this.

“I didn’t want to hit you by mistake,” Pewdie’s voice comes out small and uncertain at first so he forces them to become firm, strong and unafraid of Cry’s wrath. “Y-You were moving around too much. I didn’t know where to hit. I could’ve hit _you_ instead of the zombie.”

“Bullshit,” Cry snarls in response. “ _That thing was on_ top _of me. You had a clear shot. You could’ve smashed it on the back of the head. You could’ve kicked it away. You could’ve pulled it off of me._ No. _No-no-no-_ no. _You just_ stood _there like a fucking_ idiot _._ ”

“I was panicking,” Pewdie whispers desperately and his voice seems to shrink the same way Pewdie is shrinking away from Cry. “I was panicking, man. I froze. I didn’t know what to do. I was really scared.” His words – his pathetic, stupid words do nothing but cause Cry’s face darken.

“ _Scared_?” Cry spits out bitterly, his blazing eyes boring into him without blinking. “ _You_ were scared?” And he raises his stained, dirty hand to the glow of the flashlight between them and Pewdie sees it shaking violently in the light.

“Do you _know_ how it feels like,” Cry begins in a growl that gets louder with each emphatic word. “To fight against something that you can’t even _see_? To not know when it’s going to jump out and bite and _kill_ you? Do you _know_ how it feels like to lie helpless on the floor in the dark with no weapon or light in your hands and you _can’t see a fucking thing in front of you_? And the _asshole_ you call your friend just stands over you and watches and lets it all happen? And I was yelling for you and you heard me, right? I was _yelling_ for you to help me but you didn’t do anything. You just stood there with your fucking light and your fucking crowbar and did fucking nothing at _all_. Do you understand just how fucking _scared_ I was because of what _you_ did?”

 _I’m sorry_ , Pewdie wants to say because he can imagine it. He can imagine the horror of what Cry had gone through, can imagine how betrayed he would feel if he had been in Cry’s situation, calling out for help from the friend who stands back and does nothing. Goddamn it, Pewdie feels so, so awful for letting Cry experience that. Why did he hesitate? Why would he do that to Cry, who had done so much for them? Why did Pewdie leave him there to die?

Cry suddenly seizes his hand, the one that’s holding the flashlight and jerks it upwards so that the beam of light illuminates both their faces, so that Cry can see the guilt in Pewdie’s expression. He can feel Cry still shaking uncontrollably through his iron grip. They’re standing so close together that he finds himself holding his own breath, his throat suddenly tightening with trapped words. Cry’s scrutinizing glare proves too much for him to handle and he reluctantly averts his gaze away to escape it.

“You need to fucking wake up, man,” Cry growls unkindly at him. “This isn’t a videogame. There’s no fucking restart button. If you die, you really _die_. If I hadn’t gotten lucky and pushed that thing off of me in time, I would’ve been bitten, I would’ve turned and attacked you. It’ll be game over for the both of us. And everything that we’d gone through would’ve been for _nothing_. I’d told you before already. Don’t get distracted. Don’t you fucking hesitate. You do what you gotta do and do it _fast_ because this is how the world works right now, Pewds. We’re not hiding anymore. We have to attack first. No one is going to wait for you to get your shit together. You either act now or get killed. So the next time something comes out and jumps on you, you better make the right fucking choice.”

And with one hard tug, Cry roughly pulls the flashlight out of his hand and steps back from him, turning to walk away and Pewdie feels a stab of fear in his chest, thinks for a horrifying second that Cry is going to leave him here in the dark.

 _Cry,_ Pewdie wants to call out but his voice keeps dying in his throat. His body is shaking uncontrollably again, not in fear or anger, but in helplessness. _I get it now. I’m awake now. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Don’t leave me here. Please. Please, Cry. I’m so sorry._

But he then sees Cry pause in his tracks, as if a thought just occurred to him, and the other man turns back to look at Pewdie.

“You told me before that you believe in me,” Cry says solemnly, his gaze hard and hurtful on him. “But after what happened just now, I can’t say the same thing about you, Pewds.”

The words feel like a hard punch in the gut, leaving him winded for breath, and Pewdie is surprised by how much they hurt him inside, how much they seem to pierce into his chest and rip his insides out, leaving a gaping hole for his guilt and shame to fill in. The words are worse than all of Cry’s screams and curses combined because there is so much grim disappointment directed towards him and Pewdie doesn’t know – god, he doesn’t know what to say to that. It is like all the words and counterarguments that are ready at hand had vanished from that verbal blow, leaving him hollow and wounded inside.

A couple of nights ago, he and Cry had opened up to each other. Pewdie had told the other man of his worth, about how important he was to their group, about the things he’d done to keep them both alive. All of the good deeds that Pewdie had recognised in Cry – all of what they’d gone through – would have been for nothing if Cry had gotten killed because of Pewdie’s own carelessness. Pewdie doesn’t know if there is any kind of apology that can fix this now – this damage that has blown a hole in their relationship. Realising all this, there is nothing he can do but hang his head in shame.

Pewdie doesn’t move from his spot as he watches Cry turn away from him with his flashlight, leaving him in the darkness. He watches in a quiet, subdued manner as Cry retrieves his glasses, his cap, his shovel and his own flashlight before the latter straightens up. Just as Cry pauses to readjust the strap of his shovel, he suddenly tenses on the spot like a deer in headlights. Alarmed by the reaction, Pewdie does the decent thing and scurries closer towards the light, straining his ears to listen.

 _What is it_? He wants to say aloud because Cry hasn’t moved for a while. They then hear a faint sound like sudden bursts of noise coming from outside, somewhere in the distance. About a second later, a car alarm suddenly goes off, wailing a continuous distressing sound in the air.

Cry’s gaze meet his from under his cap and they’re serious and business-like once more. “We’ve got to go,” he says and there’s no anger or disappointment or bitterness in his tone. At least, not now anyway – not when a new situation has arisen for them to deal with. Loud noises outside only mean one thing after all – the rest of the zombies are waking up. Soon, the undead creatures will be wandering actively around the area, their hunter instincts up and functioning, and once they sense potential prey, it’s astonishing how fast they begin to move, how many of them can gather together in just a few seconds.

Pewdie hurries after Cry once he retrieves his flashlight from the other and picks up his crowbar from the floor, next to the dead zombie’s mutilated face. It takes another few more paces through the gloom until they reach a room with the boarded-up back door located next to another newspaper-covered window.

“Crowbar,” Cry says curtly, holding out an open palm and Pewdie obediently hands it to him without question. Normally, Pewdie gets the honour of smashing things to pieces with the crowbar but he doesn’t complain about it when that privilege goes to Cry this time. Pewdie isn’t in the mood to smash or do anything right now anyway. He feels drained, too guilt-ridden and ashamed of himself to do anything.

He hangs back almost timidly, beaming his light onto the boarded door and lets Cry pry off the wooden planks. Once the last plank of wood breaks free and lands with a _thunk_ on the floor, Cry tries the doorknob and it doesn’t so much budge. When he suddenly rams his shoulder against it, Pewdie flinches at the loud sound as the door shudders against its frame.

“Give me a hand here,” Cry says simply without glancing back at Pewdie.

It takes three forceful collisions before they feel the door give away and they stumble out of the gloom and darkness into open sunlight, an overgrown backyard and the continuous wailing sound of the car alarm somewhere in the far distance behind them. Pewdie blinks in the midday sunshine, trying to adjust his vision. He’s relieved that they’re finally out of that horrible, stuffy house and catching their breath of fresh air.

He sees Cry straighten up and motion towards something before them, “We made it.”

Pewdie peers over the other man’s shoulder and sees no more rows of houses before them, no more streets and lawns and cars parked in driveways. Instead, they have reached the end of the housing estate where the wild backyard they’re in faces nothing more than plain, even grasslands. Somewhere in the distance ahead of them is the town they are heading towards, its buildings layered in dust and heat waves, and far to their right is the main road which will lead them to it.

“…Good job, Cry,” Pewdie’s voice finally returns to him, sounding small and a little uncertain, and he hopes that his praise can do something to initiate some mutual communication between them.

But Cry merely turns away as if he hadn’t heard Pewdie at all, leaves behind the overgrown backyard and its abandoned house and heads towards the main road without so much as a backwards glance at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no? Oh hell yes.
> 
> There really isn't a lot to say about this chapter except that I Have Done A Bad Thing and made Cry go through something traumatic and let him scream at Pewdie's face. But my evil fangirl heart isn't sorry at all.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed riding through all that action, felt Cry's fear and Pewdie's panic, shrivel back at Cry's rage and felt low by Pewds's remorse. Perhaps you caught on some of their videogame references from this chapter or in the previous ones ("'Ola, I am Consuela", "I don't trust you!" to the teddy bear with the knight's helmet, etc.) or even some of their gameplay habits ("[Cry] We've got enough supplies for now...you don't need to be this...uh-" "Thorough?"). Either way, I'm happy if I entertained you.
> 
> Feedback - comments and kudos alike - are, as always, very, very much appreciated. If you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing this, do leave one or/and, if you like, maybe rec this story to others. I also hope you'll continue to stick around for future installments.
> 
> It's been a pleasure writing this story so far, even when it's still in its beginning stages and there is so much more to come. So thank you in advance, dear readers.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this fic has reached its three-month anniversary and this is a big deal for me because I spent the last 90 or so days thinking, planning, writing, breathing this story. Wowzers.
> 
> Much love and gratitude to the comments and kudos for the previous chapter. Special shoutout for Keli.
> 
> Here's another 12K+ monster chapter. If you catch some obvious game references, here's a hurrah for you, dearies. So sit back, imagine, and indulge yourselves.

**09.**

Cry has never felt so glad to leave the darkness of that abandoned building, to leave behind the suburban houses and pavements of the housing estate, to escape one more near-death experience at the hands of another zombie. But his deep relief doesn’t surpass the anger he feels towards Pewdie.

He already knows that Pewdie is not entirely helpless, that he is a quick-thinker and had gotten them both out of some tight spots before, had pulled him out of their wrecked car when Cry couldn’t save himself. He knows that Pewdie should be capable of thinking amidst his panic and to react fast when either of them are in danger. He knows that. He’s _seen_ it happen before.

What had transpired in that abandoned house was something else because none of the traits that Pewdie has were present during that last zombie attack. Instead, Pewdie had stood still and hesitated, had reacted too slowly, not seeming to have grasped the urgency of that life-threatening situation. He would then dare blame his own panic and fear as the reason for his hesitation even though it is Cry who is the one at a disadvantage here, who is defenceless and fighting desperately for his life. In the end, it was Cry, himself, who had to save his own skin. It is exactly this that Cry feels so angry towards the other man.

Time passes while they march alongside the main road to town and Cry starts to feel mentally tired after that violent outburst of his in the house and its continuing wake after they leave it. Soon, that anger finally simmers down a little but not without leaving some room for disappointment to settle in and disappointment, as he soon finds out, feels so much worse to him than any kind of anger. He feels its prickly thorns dig deep inside him and he’s hurt in the aftermath. He’s hurt because of Pewdie, because of the other man’s heartfelt words many nights before, because of his failure to save him.

Cry doesn’t know what he wants to do anymore, what to believe in anymore. He doesn’t know what he wants to do with Pewdie either. Or perhaps it’s better to say that he doesn’t _care_. He doesn’t care if he leaves the other behind or whether Pewdie continues to follow him. All he’s intent on doing is to march forwards towards the town ahead which is so far yet still within reach. He wants to find a signal on his radio and call for help. Wants someone to come and get them both out of this hellhole so that they don’t need to deal with this any longer.

He hasn’t looked back to check on Pewdie ever since they got out of the abandoned house about an hour ago but he can hear the other man’s timid footsteps and the shuffling sounds of his backpack behind him. The glum silence between them feels unnatural because Cry is used to hearing Pewdie’s chattering while they walk but he does his best to ignore this uncomfortable tension by telling himself that he doesn’t care anymore. He’s determined to look forward and focus on keeping a wary eye out for zombies who might be wandering across their path instead. On the other side of the road, he spots another cluster of houses – another suburban housing estate no doubt – and the faint, boxy shapes of the town buildings far, far ahead.

Around him, the grass stalks quietly stir as a cool breeze rustles past now and then. Most of the time though, the air feels uncomfortably warm and muggy and when Cry glances up at the sky, he sees that it has gone grey. The morning sun which they had watched rising in the suburban neighbourhood is now hiding behind a fleecy sheet of dull, dark clouds.

Half an hour drags by and Cry watches the second housing estate from the other side of the road edge nearer to their reach. Overhead, the clouds above seemed to have blackened with time, making the air feel heavy and damp. He feels a buzz of apprehension build in the atmosphere around him as he takes one step after another. When he pulls off his cap, he finds his forehead and the inside of his hat damp with sweat.

Another ten minutes pass by and the ominous clouds seem to lower, darkening even more, and it is not long before Cry hears the quiet rumbling of distant thunder and feels a warm drop of water hit his flushed cheek. He almost startles at the sudden contact.

This is not good, he thinks as he quickens his walking pace. The last thing he wants is for them to get caught in the middle of what is sure to be a thunderstorm. They have to go find shelter before the clouds break but there is nowhere that’s near enough to run towards except the housing estate that lies opposite. Cry doesn’t want to go into another house and deal with the zombies that he’s sure are there. There has to some other place they can use just for a couple of hours, just so the storm can pass.

By the time he thinks that, the rain begins to fall – the thick, fat individual drops splashing onto the grass turn into a steady shower of water which begins to grow in intensity a few seconds later. Cry feels them pelting on his form like bullets and automatically breaks into a run and crosses the road to reach the housing estate on the other side. Raindrops splatter onto the lens of his glasses and he squints at each building, searches for some sort of ridge that would be ideal enough for them to shelter under. Damn it, he feels his hair getting plastered onto his forehead and he can’t see–

He ducks into a backyard of a nearby house and stops in his tracks when he sees a couple of zombies clawing at the glass of the back windows, active from the noise of the rain and thunder outside. He doesn’t feel comfortable being around them so he turns tail and knocks straight into a rain-soaked Pewdie who had been following close behind him all this time. The other man emits a surprised squawk at the sudden contact and immediately backs away from him as if he had been electrocuted.

Rumbling thunder crashes overhead, making them both bristle slightly. Cry can feel its vibrations from under the damp grass he’s standing on. He’s halfway to becoming soaked to the skin. Dammit, they need to find shelter but where–?

When he runs back out and pauses by the main road to clear his frustrated thoughts, his gaze falls onto an edifice that is not quite part of the housing estate but is located just next to it. Through the watery sleet of rain, he makes out tall, wooden spires and an arch curving over a doorway, stained-glass rose windows and a large cross propped atop its triangular roof. A local church. Sanctuary.

That’ll do, Cry thinks.

He races through the wet grass, battling through the pelting rain, and ducks under the wooden arch that looms over the entrance to the building, sensing Pewdie following behind him. Cry immediately pushes the heavy doors open and they both slip inside.

Once the doors thud shut, it’s dark, silent and cold inside the church. Cry shivers at the temperature, shaking the water from his hair and clothes, and pulls out his flashlight, flicking it on. A few seconds later, another beam of light leaps from Pewdie’s own flashlight to join his. The twin beams sweep over a stone font decorated with cherubs in front of them, absent of its holy water, and he and Pewdie cautiously creep past it to slip through another set of doors into the nave of the building. Their footsteps make muffled thumps on the carpeted floor, eerily loud even in this heavy silence. Above them, they can hear the rain pitter-pattering on the roof. Another rumble of thunder growls from outside the building.

Almost every corner of the nave seems to be bathed in shadows and the only light apart from the flashlights, however dim it is, comes through the stained glass windows on each side of the wall. There’s also a thick, heavy air filled with the faint smell of incense and wood. Pillars flank the multiple rows of wooden pews on either side of the walkway, all of which face the couple of steps that leads to an altar with a cross set onto a communion table. A speaker’s podium stands on one side.

Cry shines his light over the pews and finds a couple of packets of white candles on one of the seats near a pillar. He instantly goes over and grabs them, dumping some into Pewdie’s unsuspecting arms before he murmurs, “Check the perimeter for zombies. Don’t go anywhere else. Don’t open any doors. When it’s clear, light these candles up. Put them on every corner back here. I’ll put some in the front.”

They’re lucky once again to find nothing living or undead in the hall with them so it takes a little over five minutes to set all the lit candles around the corners until the interior of the church is filled with the warm orange glow of candlelight. As Cry walks back to the centre of the walkway, he notices the magnificent stained glass panels behind the altar painted with numerous religious illustrations and symbols. In the candlelight, what was once a hall of sinister shadows suddenly turns itself into a haven of warm, comforting radiance. Cry can’t help but feel strangely safe and secure in this place.

He settles himself onto one of the pews in the middle of the walkway, puts down his shovel and peels off the first two layers of his wet clothes, watching the rainwater drip onto the carpet. After pulling on his spare shirts from his backpack, he wraps himself up in a bright yellow camping blanket before settling back in his seat and blows into his clasped hands, trying to regain some warmth.

“Um…” he’s almost surprised when he realises that Pewdie is still with him. The other man had slipped into the pew behind his and is holding out a Tupperware container of their cooked meal and a plastic fork to him. Cry takes it without looking at him and faces the front, immediately tucking into his food. It’s cold but tastes rather good and he gobbles the whole thing up in minutes.

When he finishes, he sets the container aside and lies down the length of the pew, muttering over his shoulder to Pewdie, whom he can hear is still quietly eating his own meal, “Keep an eye out, will you?” He then rolls over and shuts his eyes and tries to drift into unconsciousness to the sound of the pattering rain overhead.

He’s not sure how long time passes as he sleeps but when he opens his eyes, it’s still cold and the church looks darker than before because night time had arrived. He can see that it is pitch black outside and that the glass panels of the stained windows are dotted with trickling raindrops.

Cry slowly sits up on the pew, feeling cold and stiff under his blanket, and looks around for Pewdie, whom he finds isn’t in the bench behind him. He finally spots him on the opposite side of the walkway, a few rows closer to the front, facing the altar. From the side, Cry can see him sitting silently in his seat, his shoulders hunched forward, his head bent down and his hands clasped together in front of him, almost touching the tip of his nose. His eyes are closed and he is breathing slowly and steadily, as if he is asleep.

Cry knows for a fact that the other is not, in fact, sleeping at all. In the candlelight, it’s a little bizarre to see this serene yet remarkable sight of Pewdie praying in a church. But Cry somewhat understands the motivation for it. He knows that in hard times like these, in times when one faces their most primal fears, they tend to fall back on their most fundamental faith. It makes sense that humanity would go and seek guidance from religious and spiritual means when all else had failed, when there is no one left to save them. What better way to pray for help and guidance than in a house of God itself?

Cry isn’t quite sure about his faith or his belief in anything right now, whether it is in the worldly or the divine. But he does know that there is something wonderfully peaceful and pleasantly alleviating about watching someone bent down in prayer. His heart, which has been torn with fear and panic, anger and betrayal for the past few hours, feels lightened once more. He breathes a sigh, lies back on his seat and his eyes flutter closed.

 

Pewdie isn’t normally like this. He isn’t one to let others upset him to the point where he feels low about himself. He usually brushes off a harsh scolding or a snappy remark with a witty phrase or a snorting scoff and eases his way back to his usual tenor. But it’s different this time. He knows he’s done something tremendously wrong and he doesn’t know how to make it better. Pewdie knows that Cry is still mad at him, sees it in the way the other man never once looked back at him as they trudge down the road to town.

So he trails behind him, as silent and subdued as a shadow, or perhaps as a wounded dog, staring wistfully at the grassy ground before him, his mouth clamped shut because he’d lost his voice again when the other man ignored his words of praise. He makes sure that he’s always a few paces behind Cry, whom he treats like a living bomb about to go off at any second. He even jumps back from their sudden contact when Cry accidentally runs into him in the rain, and once they settle down in their individual pews in the church, he avoids the other man’s eyes when he hands over one of their packed meals.

After Cry finishes his food, Pewdie watches him lie down and mutter something about keeping watch before the other man rolls over and falls asleep. Pewdie does exactly that, quietly finishing his meal before he puts the container aside and stares up at the domed ceiling, at the stained glass windows, at the altar, and occasionally at Cry’s unmoving form sprawled across the length of the pew in front of him.

Hours pass by in thick, heavy silence as Pewdie stays still in his seat, letting rainwater drip off his sopping hair and listens to the storm raging outside, watches as the sky darkens into blackness and the candles lighting around the church begin to shrink. As he basks in this silence and in the meditative atmosphere of the church, his mind becomes clear and active with thoughts. He thinks back to that incident in the abandoned house, to his panic and his hesitation, to his failure to save Cry from the zombie, to the look of disappointment on Cry’s face. To his hurtful words.

Except this time, Pewdie reflects on the incident in a more rational light because he wants to make some _sense_ of it, wants to see whether that zombie attack could have been avoided. He imagines alternative scenarios where they decide not to enter the abandoned house and search for another route out of the estate. He imagines a possible scenario where it is Pewdie who slips on the blood on the floor and gets attacked instead of Cry. He imagines another situation where he reacts fast to tear the zombie off of Cry but not fast enough to stop it from biting the other. He imagines having to deal with a bitten Cry who slowly dies and returns as one of the undead. Or perhaps, a Cry who dies and doesn’t come back at all.

And like a slap in the face, for once this possibility hits him hard and he’s taken aback by how ignorant he had been all these months, ignorant of how fragile their lives actually are, how every second poses a new danger for them and it’s never certain that either of them could make out of it alive. He’s appalled by the fact that never once had the possibility of Cry _dying_ , of losing Cry, ever crossed his mind. He had expected too much of their team, believing that their staying together becomes the only factor for their prolonged survival. Except how can that still be the case if Cry gets killed because of Pewdie’s own carelessness?

Whatever alternative scenario Pewdie goes over in his head, one thing remains consistent. If Cry dies, Pewdie doesn’t know what he would do next, doesn’t know where he can go. Cry had always been his compass for these past few months, leading him through danger to get to safer ground. If he loses Cry, he will end up getting lost again, lost and alone, and he doesn’t think he will be able to go any further if that happens, doubts he’ll survive that long trying to deal with his loss.

And this scares him inside. It scares the hell out of him, this possibility of losing Cry, of being alone without him. For once, it doesn’t matter what Cry thinks of him now, how angry the other man feels towards him, how guilty Pewdie feels for failing Cry. The important thing now is to keep Cry _safe_ because Pewdie needs him more than ever even if the other man doesn’t. Pewdie needs to step up, to stay on guard and look after Cry just as Cry had done for them both. If he wants to make sure he doesn’t screw up next time, he has to be certain that he has the strength for it, that he is up for the job, that he’s brave and quick enough to handle it.

When he recalls back the events which have led them here, the many coincidental and fortunate situations where they had escaped death unscathed or found some form of hope that kept them going, he’s grateful for all that. Grateful at just how amazingly _lucky_ they have been to reach this far. Grateful that perhaps some unseen force out there had been giving them these miraculous chances to continue living for as long as they can. He wants to express his heartfelt thanks for their good fortune because it makes sense to do so here in this place of worship. It’s one of the things that he knows which still means something in this crumbling world of theirs – his faith in the thought that they’re going to make it in the end.

He feels a little uncomfortable doing it behind Cry’s pew so he moves to one a few rows in the front and faces the altar, the cross on the communion table and the beautiful stained glass windows. He puts his hands together and bends his head down, closes his eyes and prays. Prays for guidance and safety. Prays to be brave. Prays that there is someone still out there to come and save them. Prays that they reach a light in this dark and hopeless world. Prays for the welfare of his family and friends, for Marzia and their dogs. Prays for Cry and for Cry to be safe, to stay alive, for him to stay strong. Lastly, he prays for Cry’s forgiveness.

And he stays like that, unmoving and silent, in that meditative state for hours on end, bathed in the church’s numinous atmosphere until the last of the candles burns itself out and the hall fades into darkness. Until he slumps back into his seat, his body exhausted but his mind at rest.

When he wakes and sits up, his neck feels stiff and uncomfortable and his arm is numb with pins and needles. There’s a blanket which has just fallen off his shoulders that he’s sure wasn’t there the night before and wonders for a second whether it might have been Cry who had done this. He warily peeks over his shoulder to see but finds that the pews behind him are empty and that there is no one in sight.

The flash of panic that comes with this discovery fully wakes him up from his grogginess and Pewdie scrambles off his bench and cautiously makes his way to the back with a heavy heart full of dread. He sees his backpack perched on one of the pews and a wrinkled piece of paper torn from a notebook lying underneath his crowbar. He quickly snatches the paper up, almost tearing it.

 _Be back soon,_ the note reads in Cry’s handwriting.

Pewdie stares at it for a few seconds, debating on whether or not the message speaks the truth before he decides that it must be – because why would Cry bother leaving him a note about his return if he planned on leaving him anyway?

He slumps back against the pew with newfound relief, absent-mindedly smoothing the wrinkles from Cry’s note, and stares ahead, suddenly noticing his surroundings. It is morning now and sunlight filters through the stained glass windows on every side of the nave, lighting up the rows of pews, the pillars, the ceiling above him and the altar. Although the interior of a church may look wonderfully pleasant under the glow of candlelight, it still doesn’t compare to how breath-taking it looks illuminated by the golden rays of the sun.

Pewdie decides to be patient and wait for Cry to come back but soon becomes restless after two minutes. His mind suddenly wakes up, forming questions that cross his mind in an almost frenzying manner. Where did Cry go exactly? How long had he been gone? What could he possibly be doing? Why didn’t Cry wake him up to get Pewdie to join him? After all, they always do everything together for safety reasons. What if Cry runs into trouble and Pewdie isn’t there to save him? Shouldn’t Cry be back by now? Shouldn’t Pewdie be out looking for him? Yes, maybe I should go and check up on him just in case. Even if he ends up yelling at me again, at least I know he’s okay. Yeah, I should go do that. I think that’s a good idea. Alright, here we go.

He stuffs the note into his pocket, picks up his crowbar and begins to explore the rest of the nave, tries to guess which way Cry could have gone. Perhaps he went upstairs to check for supplies? Maybe he went outside? Where should Pewdie go first?

After he treads up the steps to the altar, he almost trips over a fold in the thick red carpet. Dismissing this, he sees two doors on either side of the wall before him, almost wedged underneath the stained glass windows, making them unnoticeable at first glance. Pewdie stands by the communion table, flicking his eyes from left to right and back as he decides on which door to choose.

 _Map?_ He calls, intending to ask for some help, and realises he’d left both road map and flashlight in his bag back on the pew. He only has his crowbar with him so he lifts it up to stare at it and hesitantly asks, “Which door should I pick?”

The crowbar remains silent and still in his hand and Pewdie gives it an indignant shake for its lack of cooperation. In the end though, he finally decides to pick the door on the right. He passes the communion table and makes his way there, grasps the doorknob and eases it open.

On the other side of the door, he finds what looks like an office inside, its windows shut and covered with thick black blinds to block out the sun, throwing the whole room into dark shadow. He can make out a desk and chair, a few cabinets, a wardrobe and some clerical clothing hung on a coat hanger. He also discerns a human-like figure standing by the desk with their back to him.

 _Cry_? Pewdie wants to call out in confusion. Why would Cry be scavenging for supplies in the dark, without a flashlight? He takes a step into the office and the weight of his foot makes the wooden floorboards groan loudly in protest.

Pewdie freezes on the spot at the unexpected noise, unable to help himself. Before him, the humanoid shadow cocks its head, noticing the sound as well, and turns around and Pewdie realises it isn’t Cry at all. At least, that’s what he believes because he’s sure Cry doesn’t go around wearing what looks like a priest’s cassock.

Pewdie takes a step back, unsure of who this mysterious figure is.

Until the shadow begins to shuffle towards him, its movements clumsy and unnatural, and Pewdie backs away in horror, feeling his heart begin to pound in his chest. This time, he’s sure this isn’t Cry or a random living person either. He had been stupid to carelessly open the door like that. Now, it’s too late to reach for it, too late to reach out to pull the door shut because the dark figure is already staggering closer towards him, close enough for Pewdie to make out its features.

It’s a priest, or what used to be a priest. Its once handsome face is now pale and twisted and ugly, eyes blank and mouth lolling open. A lump of its head is gone on the left side and below that, there’s also a horrible wound on the side of its neck under its left ear. A chunk of flesh had been torn out, leaving a gaping hole which exposes the interior workings of its throat and the thick trail of dried blood which had gushed out of that gap had stained its clerical collar red.

It doesn’t seem to have fully woken up yet but it’s still staggering forward, getting closer towards the open door and Pewdie continues to back away slowly, panic quickly rising in his throat with each drawn breath. He wonders where the hell could Cry be and whether he is coming back any time soon. He also thinks, _what do I do? What do I do? What do I_ do?

Once the zombie steps in front of the doorframe, its weight makes the floorboard underneath its feet emit a groan. Pewdie sees its head jerk from side to side in confusion and realises that the zombie had only staggered forward because it had been attracted to the sound of the floorboard creaking. He instantly recognises his chance to escape its attention. If Pewdie continues to remain quiet, he can just sneak backwards and grab his bag and leave the church without alerting the creature. He can try to find Cry later. Right now, he needs to get out and fast.

But Pewdie doesn’t dare avert his gaze from the zombie because he’s terrified at the thought that if he turns his back on it, it will jump on him once he isn’t looking. So he continues to retreat slowly, making sure his footfalls are muffled by the carpet and keeps watching the undead priest, ready to freeze if the creature starts turning to his direction.

And then his back bumps into something – oh shi– _no,_ he had backed away straight into the communion table which turns out to be unstable. The impact makes said table wobble with an audible _thunk_ against the floor and the cross shifts slightly from the momentum, its circular base scraping against the wooden surface.

 _Oh fff_ –, despite the slightly ridiculous notion, Pewdie has to bite his lip to stop himself from swearing aloud or inwardly in his mind. Instead, he focuses on holding his breath and not moving, his back pressing against the table.

No, no, _no,_ he thinks as his panic continues to rise.This is not _happening_.

But the noise, however miniscule it is, has already drawn the zombie’s attention on him. Pewdie sees its head move towards the sound and it begins to shuffle forward once more, passing through the doorframe to fully step into the altar. The sunlight illuminates its twisted face, its pale eyes and the dried blood staining its clerical clothes. Pewdie imagines that lolling mouth opening to rip a chunk of flesh out of him and unconsciously shivers in response.

He needs to get out of here and fast. He is so tempted to scream aloud, so tempted to just make a run for it but the knowledge that doing either of these things will kill him stops him from acting them out. So he forces himself to calm down, to hold back that feeling of panic, and edge his way around the table and down the altar steps.

Come on, Pewds, he coaxes himself. You can do this. Keep your eye on the zombie. Yes, I know it’s getting closer but that’s only because it’s curious of the sound of the table. We just need to get away from that fuc– that _table_ and grab the bag and get the heck out of here. Come on. Don’t be scared. Don’t panic. Be like Cry (Cry, where _are_ you?). You can do this, man. You can do this.

His attempt at self-encouragement helps and he slowly sidles around the table, tracing its edges with one hand until he gets to the other side, until the width of the table separates him and the zombie apart. He continues to watch the creature approach as he backs away slowly, drags his foot one at a time across the carpet–

And the heel of his boot catches that stupid fold, that same fold on the carpet he had almost tripped over earlier, except that this time he _does_ stumble from it and when he flails his arms about to regain his balance, his stupid mouth blurts out, “ _Fuck_!” and his voice echoes around the room, resonating off the walls in a chorus of repetitive curses.

And he knows that he’s royally fucked indeed.

He sees the zombie’s head jerk towards his voice, thinks he sees something change in the zombie’s face and the next thing he knows, it transforms from a passive, sleep-walking creature to an all-out terrifying beast when it suddenly vaults itself towards him with an ugly, guttural snarl. Pewdie manages to react to that sudden, violent movement by flinching and letting out a frightened whimper, believing for one second that this is the end of the line for him.

But the zombie’s leap is cut short when it crashes into the table separating them, the impact making the structure wobble precariously on the carpet and the momentum knocks the cross down but is not yet powerful enough to make the whole table fall over.

For that flash of a second, Pewdie has enough time to think wildly in his panic, to ask himself, _what should I do?_ At first, he’s aware that he just wants to run away, god he wants to run away so badly but he’s afraid that his footsteps will only make the creature latch onto his trail, make it chase him until he is caught. _Dammit. What should I_ do? He asks himself again and that’s when he realises that he’s been gripping his crowbar in one hand all along, that he had forgotten about the weapon he always brings with him out of habit thanks to Cry’s insistence.

But that flash of a second passes and the zombie, having heard his whimpering voice, seems to have recognised the table obstructing its path and begins to madly scramble on top of it in order to reach for him. When its arm shoots out to grab him, that’s when Pewdie strikes, yelping as he swings his crowbar clumsily with both hands, aiming for its head–

And _misses_. But the curved end of the crowbar flies into the hole on the side of its neck instead, colliding into it, making the zombie’s head jerk sideways on impact. Pewdie quickly tries to pull the crowbar back and take another swing at it but when his efforts drag the creature closer towards him, he realises that the stupid thing is stuck into the zombie’s throat. He pushes back instantly, sees that the curved end of his crowbar had latched onto the exposed tendons inside its throat, stretching them grotesquely. He cringes at the sight.

The zombie is not done with him yet. With another snarl, it tries to scramble across the table again and Pewdie desperately pushes his crowbar, tries to force the creature backwards. He’s amazed by how strong the zombie is as it resists his shoves and when its arms claw out and grab hold of his sleeves, he whimpers at the contact, tries to shake himself out of its iron grip without letting go of his weapon. Suddenly, he’s more terrified than he’s ever been.

“No, no, no, let _go_ ,” Pewdie finds himself babbling, his voice small and scared. His words only cause the zombie to thrash even more wildly at him, its grip on him firm and he is dragged closer to it by his sleeves. Pewdie automatically widens his standing stance, digging his heels onto the floor as he desperately fights back against the force of its pull. When he sees its disfigured head turn, aiming to bite his free hand, he jerks his arm back, twisting it under the creature’s limb so that the limb becomes a barrier against its own teeth, which snap like those of an attacking, wild dog. He knows that the only thing that’s keeping the zombie’s jaws from propelling forwards to attack his face is the crowbar that’s digging into its open throat.

“You can’t have me, Father,” he continues to babble and he knows it’s useless and really unnecessary and will probably make everything worse but he just wants this thing to let _go_ of him. “It’s not my time to go yet. Let me have my crowbar back and we can settle this like men. Let go of me. N-No, no, no, _no_. I’m sorry. Fff–nope, _no._ Don’t eat me. I don’t taste nice, I swear. Let go, Father. Let _go._ ”

He can’t push this monster back – it’s far too strong for him – and he hates the fact that it still has its grip on him. He’s so tempted to let his crowbar go and smack the creature’s hands away and just run, but he knows that the moment he lets go, it might be the last thing he does before the zombie pounces and takes a bite out of him. _What should I do?_ He asks himself again, tearing his eyes away from the zombie for a second to glance around for something to use.

His gaze rests on the cross that had been knocked over on the table and he quickly decides that it’s the next best thing. But how can he reach for it without releasing one hand from the crowbar? Perhaps if he throws the creature off-balance– no, perhaps if he pins it down on the table, this can buy him enough time to grab that cross.

So he readjusts his hold on the crowbar, takes a step back and drags the creature down with all his might until its body slams onto the table and its head hangs off the edge of it. He quickly plants his foot onto the back of the zombie’s head, forcing its neck to bend forward at an uncomfortable angle and its face and snapping mouth to press against the side of the table, away from any of his limbs. He’s faced with a new problem now as the zombie struggles wildly to raise its head, to lift itself up and he presses his foot down harder to pin it securely down.

Once he’s got something of a grip on the thrashing zombie, he releases one hand from his crowbar, fights against the creature’s arm on his sleeve and reaches out for the cross. With some difficulty, he strikes the side of the zombie’s skull with the thick circular base of the cross, lands blow after blow onto the back of its head and onto its terrible head wound. He bashes it repeatedly, frenziedly, uncontrollably for a number of times until his clumsy movements cause the cross to suddenly slip out of his clammy hand and fly off somewhere.

 _Oh sh_ – _no freaking way_ , he thinks, quickly grabbing hold of the crowbar with both hands and glances around hastily for the cross, unable to find it. _Where the heck is that cross?_ _Where did it go? Damn, I’m too close. I’m too close to it. I need to do something before it bites me._

There’s nothing else within reach that he can use to beat the creature. He only has his crowbar once more and it seems to be the only thing left he has left to smash into the zombie’s head and destroy its brain. But he can’t do that unless he pries his crowbar free. So he increases the pressure on its head with the heel of his boot and gives a particularly hard yank.

The crowbar rips free. But not without tearing the ligaments in the zombie’s throat out. Spatters of blood and bits of muscle hit his pants and the bottom of his shirt as he stumbles backwards and he’s momentarily surprised when he actually slips out of the zombie’s grasp. The creature itself slides forward from the momentum, snarling as half of its body tumbles off the side of the table before it lands jaw first onto the solid ground, legs still hanging in the air. Pewdie hears a disturbing _crack_ as the zombie’s jawbone breaks in half.

Seeing that it cannot lift itself up from its slump because its arms are folded underneath it, Pewdie seizes his chance and stomps on the back of its head to pin it down. That’s when he cringes as he spots the terrible wound on the side of its head which had become worse after being bashed in further by the cross he’d used and he almost recoils at the disgusting sight. His blows had torn a hole through part of the skull like the cracked shell of an egg and he can see the gruesome layers of bloody flesh inside that open cavity. But he also notices that the wound seems tender enough that if one strikes hard, it’s possible for a thin object to pierce through the rest of its skull and reach the brain.

 _That’s_ where he needs to aim his crowbar at, Pewdie realises despite his revulsion at the sight. That’s the place _._

So Pewdie wastes no more time swinging the crowbar and – _yes,_ makes contact as the curved end latches onto the hole on the side of the creature’s head. He twists the crowbar in his hands, forces that curved end inwards, hears and feels the layers of flesh squelching as the thin metal sinks into its skull.

He feels the zombie thrashing violently under his foot, trying to throw him off, and he responds by applying more pressure onto its head, feels bones and teeth crunching underneath his boot. Gritting his teeth hard, Pewdie continues to twist the crowbar into the hole in its skull like one does with a screw with all his might, feeling his arms shake at the strain but he doesn’t care. His mind repeats the same mantra to him again and again: _get to the brain, get to the brain_ – and he’s intent on doing that and nothing else. He sees the crowbar inch deeper and deeper into the skull and rearranges his grip every time it slips until his fingers bite into the metal. He hardly notices the sharp end digging into his palms, cutting through his skin and drawing blood.

He only stops twisting and pushing inwards once he’s certain he can’t push anymore, once the length of his crowbar has sunk two-thirds into the zombie’s head, once he feels the end hit something too solid to penetrate. He pauses for a bit and realises that the zombie had stopped moving and after a few more seconds of still silence, that’s when he slowly releases his grip on the crowbar. His fingers come away sore and bloody, taking a while to uncurl, but they’re shaking visibly in the sunlight and – just like that, Pewdie feels drained, _exhausted_.

He stumbles backwards and collapses in a boneless heap on the ground, panting long and hard for breath, his gasps echoing off the walls of the hall. He then slowly edges away from the dead zombie’s body, at the sight of a crowbar buried deeply into its skull and he’s unaware that he’s leaving bloody handprints on the carpet.

“Okay,” he gasps, bringing a trembling hand up and pushing his tousled, sweaty hair back and staining it red. His chest and throat hurt. His eyes are stinging, burning. His vision blurs. Something wet spills down his cheeks. “Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay…”

Too exhausted to move, he slumps where he sits and stares blankly forward in a daze, unaware that behind him, one of the double doors leading into the nave of the church is opening.

 

When Cry wakes up, he finds the church bathed in the soft, warm rays of morning sunlight. He feels a whole lot better now than he had been the night before, with his body and mind refreshed. After downing half a bottle of water, he gets up and walks up the length of the walkway and stops by Pewdie’s bench, suddenly remembering that the other man had been sitting here in prayer many hours before.

Strangely, he isn’t as angry at the other as he was yesterday. He wonders whether it is because of the church’s peaceful ambience that his heart had been calmed. He still can’t quite forgive what Pewdie had done but at least Cry decides that the deed isn’t bad enough to make him hate the other man. After a brief pause, Cry goes back to retrieve Pewdie’s blanket, and when he stands over the other man, he tucks the sheet around his shoulders before stepping back to let him rest.

Afterwards, Cry scribbles a note on a page from a notebook he took from the safe house they stayed in and leaves it under Pewdie’s crowbar. With backpack and shovel hoisted on either shoulder, he decides to explore the rest of the church. More importantly, he wants to find some steps that lead upstairs to a bell tower or a rooftop of some sort because he wants to see whether he can get a signal on their CB radio.

He finds a narrow staircase outside the nave of the building, located to the left of the entrance, hiding behind a simple swinging fire door. He creeps upstairs, one hand loosely gripping the shovel, and tries not to let the steps creak too loudly under his boots. The stairs lead to an empty landing with a couple of doors and Cry cannot help but peek through each and every one of them and search through the drawers and cabinets for something to take. In one room, he comes across a little library with shelves full of theology and religious books. In another, it’s a beautiful marble tiled bathroom with a glass sink bowl and a stylish set of taps but no running water. Plastic green vines snake down the walls and a row of mini potted cacti line the bathroom’s only windowsill.

In every room he goes into, he makes sure he turns on the radio and checks every channel for any active transmissions. It’s only when he’s looting the cabinets of one of the rooms that his radio suddenly emits a sharp buzzing and whining noise.

“Hello?” Cry says into the microphone after he scrabbles for the device in his bag and cradles it in his hands, his heart pounding in anticipation. A few seconds later, a series of squeals and static noise comes through and he thinks he hears words within the interference. He bends his ear closer to the speaker and concentrates hard.

“…anyone…fight…dead…too man…out…”

He _isn’t_ imagining things. Someone _is_ out there. He hits the _Talk_ button and says, “Hello? Is someone there? Can you hear my voice? We need help. We’re in a church. Hello?”

“...urvivors…meet…safe…sundown–”

A hissing white noise suddenly overlaps any more words before another high pitched static squeal causes him to cringe away and the device then goes silent. Cry makes several more attempts to send his messages, waits almost ten minutes for a reply and gets nothing. He leans back against the cabinet he has been rummaging through and sighs in frustration.

“Damn it,” he mutters, gripping the radio hard in his hand until his knuckles turn white. “What the fuck is wrong with this thing _now_?”

Perhaps he needs to get outside, get to a high, open space and try again. He eyes the window and slowly gets up to go over to it. The room he’s in overlooks a section of the housing estate that the church is located next to and he can see the many staggering forms of zombies clustered together and moving around purposely in groups. Cry swallows, recognising this new problem. The zombies out here are awake, perhaps roused by the thunderstorm last night seeing that they had been in the middle of it. It’s best that he and Pewdie find an exit that is the furthest away from any of the suburban houses. The worst case scenario would be to use something to distract the zombies while he and Pewdie escape unnoticed.

He isn’t sure if he wants to find that signal again because he’s afraid that if he opens a window and does receive the transmission, the static noise might be loud enough to attract any passing zombie’s attention. The last thing he wants is to be trapped in a church with a horde of zombies banging on the doors outside.

On the other hand, he’s thrilled that they are finally receiving something on the radio, that they are finally hearing living people’s voices, that they are not the only ones alone out here. Somewhere beyond this housing estate, perhaps in the town right ahead, there are people who are fighting and surviving just like they are. Or even better, people who may be waiting to be sent out and help those in need like them. It’s a newfound hope for him and he cherishes this feeling, uses it to lift his spirits to help him keep on going. It won’t be long now, he thinks. It won’t be long until help arrives.

Feeling invigorated from this thought, he turns off the radio for now and continues scavenging the room for something useful to take. There’s a first aid kit box he retrieves from the top of a dusty wardrobe and the small kitchen he finds at the end of the landing becomes a gold mine to him. He stuffs a couple of boxes of cookies, some bottles of water, a pair of scissors and a ballpoint pen, two cans of corned beef, a packet of jellybeans and some chocolate bars into his backpack. He ignores the bag of coffee beans by the stylish coffee maker but snatches a little tin of mints off the counter and slips that into his pocket. He spends a few minutes rearranging the contents of his backpack before he hoists it up his shoulders and picks up his shovel.

He isn’t sure how long he spent exploring the upstairs landing of the building. But once he’s satisfied with his scavenging, he makes his way downstairs, passing the stone font decorated with cherubs, and pushes one of the doors leading into the nave of the building open and slips into the hall. As he walks up the length of the walkway, he begins to realise that none of the pews are occupied and that Pewdie isn’t sitting in any of them. The other man’s bag is still there in one of the middle rows and his blanket is flung over one of the benches in the front. Cry unconsciously tightens his grip on his shovel, suddenly wary of the entire room as he strolls cautiously forward, eyes searching each row for the other man.

And he sees it. On the altar before him, with half of its body sprawled down the edge of the communion table is a dead zombie priest, a crowbar stuck deep into a hole on the side of its head. The cross which used to sit on the table lies on its side on the carpeted floor, its circular base stained with blood. A few paces away, near the steps leading to the altar, Cry finds Pewdie sitting slumped forward with his head bent down and his back to him.

For a second, Cry stops in his tracks, unsure of whether he should approach the other man. He doesn’t want to entertain the possibility that the worst thing might have happened. From what he sees from this scene, he assumes that Pewdie had been attacked by a hidden zombie but had already taken care of the problem. Yet why is Pewdie looking like that, slumped on the floor and looking as small and frail as a new-born kitten? Unless–

 _No, no, no, no, no, no–,_ Cry thinks, suddenly panic-stricken and scared senseless at the thought. Oh god, I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know _what_ to do if that turns out to be true. I can’t lose him. I don’t _want_ to lose him.

“Pewds?” Cry calls, his voice coming out in a shaky breath. I’m an idiot, he berates himself. I shouldn’t have left him here. We shouldn’t have split up at all. What the hell was I thinking?

He cautiously makes his way closer to the steps of the altar, his shovel clutched and ready to swing if need be. Eventually, he can hear Pewdie gasping and muttering something under his breath, his words sounding a little like, “okay, okay, okay, okay–” repeated over and over again like a mantra.

The last time Cry checked, zombies don’t speak.

“Pewds!” he sighs in relief.

His spell of wariness breaks and he hurriedly climbs up the steps onto the altar and crouches before the other man. The first thing he notices is that Pewdie’s hands are limply held out in front of him, drenched in blood which drips onto the carpet below.

Oh god, Cry thinks in alarm, feeling the fear and dread return to him tenfold. Oh god oh god oh god oh _fuck_. Pewdie might not have turned into a zombie now but that doesn’t cross out the possibility that he could have been _bitten_ by one.

“Are you bitten?” Cry asks in direct manner, forcing his voice to sound firm and serious before waiting for a response.

“ _Pewds_ ,” Cry calls again, a little louder this time when the other doesn’t stir. “Pewds, this is really important. This is important. I need you to answer me this. Did it _bite_ you? Are you bitten? Pewds? _Pewds_!” He seizes Pewdie by the shoulders and almost pulls back in surprise. Pewdie is shivering uncontrollably and his face, although Cry can’t see much underneath his wild, blood-stained hair, looks unnaturally pale.

“Oh god. Okay, okay, okay, okay,” Cry gasps, swallowing to fight back his sense of panic and dread; fights back the urge to back away from the other man and run because he doesn’t want to handle this if it turns out to be true. No, no, I need to check for bite marks, he forces himself to think instead. I need to make sure he’s _not_ bitten.

He hurriedly inspects the most obvious spots for bites – the arms, the neck, the shoulder, the side, the legs, the face – but he finds no skin marred by teeth marks nor is there any other injury apart from the blood on Pewdie’s hands. Cry peers closely at the palms, feeling his heart pound agitatedly in his chest, before he draws back in relief when he finds no signs of bites. The skin on the heels of Pewdie’s hands seem to be torn though which explains the source of the blood. Cry needs to tend to those wounds soon.

“Pewds,” says Cry again, now a little calmer after that scare. He lightly pats Pewdie’s cheek in an effort to rouse the other and finds it damp with drying tears. He’s beginning to get very worried when he realises that Pewdie hasn’t moved or shown any kind of response for the last couple of minutes. In fact, the other man doesn’t seem to notice that Cry had been crouching in front of him for a while. Instead, he continues to stare blankly forward in a stunned daze, drawing slow and shallow breaths.

He’s in shock, Cry suddenly realises in concern. He’d just killed his first zombie after all.

“It’s okay now,” Cry tries to reassure the other, hoping that his words could reach him. “It’s safe. We’re safe. No zombies nearby. You’re not bitten. You’re gonna be fine, Pewds. No need to worry. Come on, man.”

When Pewdie still doesn’t so much respond to that, Cry begins to feel a little desperate. “Pewds? Pewds, please?” he pleads, feeling helpless and scared once more. “Please say something. Say my name. It’s me, remember? It’s Cry. Remember me? Please, Pewds. Don’t be like this, man. I don’t know what to do. Come on, Pewds… Pewds, _please_.”

What do you do if a person goes into shock? Cry thinks. Dammit, why does he feel this cold?

Instantly, Cry realises what he can do and he’s appalled to have not thought of this earlier. He briefly lets go of Pewdie to lower his backpack onto the floor and digs out his yellow blanket. After he unfolds it, he edges closer towards Pewdie and draws the blanket across the other man’s back, carefully wrapping it around those shivering shoulders, trying to keep him warm and comfortable.

And he tenses in surprise when Pewdie suddenly leans forward across the gap that separates them and very gently rests his head onto the space between Cry’s neck and shoulder. Speechless at the unexpected act, Cry can’t do much but stare blankly at the mop of bloodied hair that’s brushing the side of his jawline. He feels the length of Pewdie’s body trembling violently against his.

About a few seconds later, he sees Pewdie’s shoulders begin to visibly shake before the latter wholly breaks down, his chest heaving up and down against Cry’s in a fit of uncontrollable, hiccupping sobs. Cry soon feels a damp patch of warm tears begin to soak the collar of his shirt; feels Pewdie burying his face further into his collarbone. A feeling of fierce protectiveness suddenly swells up in Cry’s chest and he pulls on the two ends of the blanket around Pewdie’s shoulders and draws the other a little closer to him in a semblance of an embrace.

“I’m here,” Cry murmurs reassuringly to the blood-stained mop of hair resting against him. “I’m here now. It’s okay. It’s alright. We’re safe, Pewds. I’m here for you, buddy.”

He lets Pewdie sob his heart out, continues mumbling comforting words to him; holds his shivering body against his. He doesn’t know how long they sit there on the carpet of the altar in front of the dead zombie, bathed in the warm sunlight shining through the stained glass windows above them. He doesn’t know and he doesn’t really care. All that he’s concerned about right now is for Pewdie to get better.

Sometime later, once Pewdie’s sobs die down and he’s drawing long and calmed breaths while they bask in the thick silence of the church, Cry finally hears him speak and his voice is croaky and muffled into his shirt. “Oh man,” Pewdie moans. “I killed a zombie priest, Cry. I’m definitely going to hell now.”

That one remark is so irrelevant and inappropriate in this context that it throws Cry completely off like a hit from a baseball bat, and he’s simply stunned in the aftermath of it. After a few seconds of flabbergasted silence, Cry bursts out laughing, his voice echoing off the walls, and he unconsciously tightens his hold on their embrace and feels Pewdie weakly shaking with laughter against him. Goodness, he can’t help it though. He really doesn’t know if what Pewdie had said was serious or was simply said in jest. What he does know is that Pewdie has an amazing ability to change the mood of the room within seconds. He suddenly feels an unexpected rush of affection for the other man and thinks, _goddammit. I can’t stay mad at this guy for long. I really can’t._

“Okay, tough guy,” says Cry coaxingly, letting go to help the other man up on his feet. “Let’s go get you cleaned up.”

Pewdie looks worse for wear when he emerges, sniffing, from Cry’s shoulder, his face blotchy with dried tears, his eyes and nose swollen red. When he tries to wipe his face, he suddenly flinches and glances down at his hands and Cry sees that his palms are caked with a crust of dried blood, making it hard for him to even try bending his fingers.

“Never mind that,” says Cry, pulling the other man’s arm over his shoulders to support him. “Come on. One step at a time. Outside and up those stairs.”

Cry takes him up to the small kitchen, sits him down on one of the stools tucked underneath a window and takes a seat on the other so they’re sitting face to face. After dampening a tea towel, he begins to carefully wipe away the dried blood off of Pewdie’s hands and finds the torn skin on the heels of the other man’s palms. There are also a number of nicks, scratches and bruises scattered all over his fingers, including a thin red line cut across the inner joints.

Cry winces slightly at the sight, notices how tender the gashes on the heels look and when he cleans around them, the cuts begin to bleed again, slowly spreading across Pewdie’s palm. Once he wipes most of the blood off, he puts down the tea towel, now stained red, and readies the cotton wool swabbed with antiseptic.

“You ready for this?” Cry asks, cradling one of Pewdie’s hands with one of his own while holding the cotton wool in the other.

“No,” Pewdie says weakly, and Cry lightly presses the cotton onto the bloody torn skin and Pewdie yelps in pain, jerking his hand out of his grasp.

“You’ll be fine,” Cry says reassuringly, taking the hand back and continues to lightly dab the swabbed cotton onto the cuts and grazes. Once he’s done disinfecting both hands, he extracts a roll of bandages from the first aid kit and begins to dress the wounds, binding the bandages around the other man’s palms as well as each individual finger. They both fall into a mutual silence.

“…Were you scared?” Pewdie croaks quietly, surprising Cry out of his concentration. The other man is staring glumly at the way he is tending to his injured hands. “When you killed your first zombie?”

Cry pauses in his wrapping, unsure about how to answer this sudden enquiry, but he is sitting close enough to Pewdie to notice his tired eyes and the curiosity that sits in his expression. He allows himself to briefly think back to the first time he picks up his shovel, the first time he stabs it into a zombie’s neck and severs its head, the first time he stands over its decapitated body, filled with a tempest of emotions that had coursed through him. Except that now he also remembers Marilyn and George and Thomas. He also remembers Dog. Remembers just how fucking awful it felt losing all three of them.

Despite how long ago all these events seem to him, the pain of their loss still stabs him hard in the heart. This is not good, he thinks. There is a reason why he doesn’t dwell on bad memories because he believes they distract him, make him lower his guard, breaks him down. So when he feels the flood of unwanted emotions, he mentally holds them all back, banishes them into the recesses of his mind. He only allows one aspect of those memories to linger just to answer Pewdie’s question.

“I wasn’t,” Cry reveals truthfully in a guilty mumble, resuming his work on Pewdie’s hands. He realises he has lowered his head almost shamefully when he says it and senses Pewdie leaning forward into his space, his head tilting closer towards his as if he is trying to hear his words better.

“You weren’t?” Pewdie says, his voice still raspy and quiet. There’s another question in his words that Cry identifies.

“I was feeling a lot of things actually,” Cry admits and his words come out soft and quiet like Pewdie’s too and he’s not even sure why he’s doing it. Perhaps it’s because they’re sitting so near each other with their heads bowed together, almost as if they’re sharing secrets. “I was angry mostly. And there was a lot of hate and sadness and guilt as well. I let everything out and focused it all on that zombie. I guess… I guess didn’t have enough time to be scared. Too many feelings were happening all at once. I just went fucking ballistic–”

“Don’t swear,” Pewdie cuts in unexpectedly.

“What?” Cry blinks, thrown off-guard once more. He glances up and sees how close they are; sees the disapproving frown on Pewdie’s face.

“We’re in a _church_ ,” although his voice is still weak, Pewdie still points out this fact in an empathetic manner. “So mind your language, man.”

 _Really_? Cry wants to say to him at first, wants to laugh at this but decides not to do so in the end because he still isn’t sure whether the other man is being serious or not. Nonetheless, he finds it amusing that Pewdie has the decency to remain respectful and civil in a religious building like this even when everyone knows for a fact that he swears like a sailor and unconsciously spouts indecent and often vulgar comments in his videos.

“Sorry,” Cry quickly apologises, looking back down to resume his work. “Anyway, what I wanted to say was that I went ballistic. You know, batshi– er, I went insane. I kept hitting it and hitting it and then… well, I didn’t think of anything except that I had to kill it before it kills me first.”

“So were you…not okay after that?” Pewdie asks.

 _Did you go into shock too?_ is actually what Cry is hearing from Pewdie’s words. He exhales deeply and says, “I actually just brushed the whole thing off and then went on my way.”

He hears Pewdie breathe for a while, senses the latter’s gaze on their hands again before he hums in a wistful manner.

“Geez. You’re so brave, Cry,” Pewdie mumbles. “When you’ve got your shovel, you’re such a badass when you kill zombies. It makes sense though. You’re used to it by now so you’re not scared at all. I mean, I’ve never done this killing thing before so I’m not used to the feeling. I really had no idea how–” Pewdie’s voice suddenly breaks.  

“Not all of us react the same way,” Cry explains gently. “Don’t feel so bad about it.”

“…I guess you’re right,” Pewdie continues to mumble, although his voice sounds suspiciously thick, as if he’s holding back tears. “I mean, compared to you, I’m a fuc– I’m kind of a wuss, right?” he says with a sheepish laugh.

“No, you’re not,” Cry cannot help but counter this with a scoff. “You’re not a wuss, Pewds. You’ve never been one since all this crazy stuff happened. No, you’re brave too. In your own way. I mean, I don’t think I can do that – what _you_ can do. Like when you always seem to find something to laugh at even when everything else goes bad. Or that time when you pulled me out of the car. Remember that? Or-or when you tell me we should still treat places like someone’s house or a church with respect. You’re still _you_ even when the rest of us are falling apart. You’re probably even braver than I am.”

Cry falls silent for a brief moment just so he can concentrate on finishing up his bandaging. Once he’s done, he lets go and finally looks up and meets Pewdie’s woeful gaze. Now that Cry is seeing him this close, he notices exactly how wretched and miserable Pewdie appears with his red-rimmed, teary eyes and his blotchy face, his blood-stained hair and his doleful expression, as if he doesn’t know whether to accept Cry’s words of encouragement or not. The very sight tugs at Cry’s heartstrings, bringing with it an unexpected feeling of regretful sadness. He feels sorry that Pewdie had gone through this first zombie kill and, unlike him, had come away feeling shaken and traumatised. He feels sorry that he had yelled at him a day before and had thrown his words back into his face.

It really wasn’t his fault, Cry tells himself. It wasn’t Pewdie’s fault that he froze and couldn’t save me at that moment. It was his first time after all. I was just so scared. So scared that I got angry. I can’t be mad at him because of that one mistake. I have to give him another chance.

At this resolution, Cry swallows and lowers his gaze timidly back to Pewdie’s bandaged hands which are still held out in front of him. “Look, um…” he starts, fighting off his discomfort and awkwardness. “I’m not… I’m not angry at you anymore. So don’t let whatever happened yesterday bother you, okay? Maybe we’ll just forget it ever happened–”

“I can’t pretend something like that didn’t happen, Cry,” Pewdie suddenly says, surprising him because the other man’s voice sounds the steadiest that it’s been all morning. “And I won’t forget it either. Because you were right. I needed to wake up. And after what happened, I did wake up. I guess it didn’t hit me until now.”

“But–” Cry wants to tell him that it’s still wasn’t right of him to corner Pewdie like he did and lash at him with harsh words to hurt him, but he is cut short when Pewdie merely shakes his head.

“You had every right to be mad at me,” Pewdie says. “And to… to not believe in me. And I know I screwed up but I want to do better next time and change your mind. I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened and I didn’t even notice… I was really oblivious about– um,” he suddenly stops, looking lost for words to express himself. Cry blinks, becoming curious at whatever it is that Pewdie is trying to say to him. So he waits patiently for the other to continue speaking, unaware that he’s fixing him a look complete with a raised eyebrow, and Pewdie’s face suddenly flushes under his stare.

“Um… it’s nothing,” Pewdie mumbles, glancing away in embarrassment. “I just… I want you to be okay, alright? That you don’t run into any trouble and get– um, basically… I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. That’s all. I just want you to know that. So yeah. You can, uh… probably stop looking at me like that right now.”

At this acknowledgement, Cry averts his gaze away too, trying not to smile. He’s surprised that he actually gets what Pewdie is trying to say to him because he feels the same way towards the other man too. Cry doesn’t want Pewdie to die. He doesn’t want Pewdie to turn into a zombie either. He doesn’t want to lose his only friend because if that were to happen, Cry doesn’t know what he will do next. He doesn’t know if he will ever get over the pain of losing Pewdie.

“Listen,” Cry says resolutely because he wants Pewdie to know where he stands on this too. “I’m glad nothing bad happened to you, man. But – but, _geez._ For a minute, I thought you were bitten. And you really scared the hell out of me, Pewds. Don’t do that again, okay?” After a brief pause, he playfully mutters out, “You dummy.”

“ _You_ ’re the dummy,” Pewdie shoots back, albeit a little weakly. “Who said we should never split up in the first place? And yet you _did_.”

“Ah. Touché _,_ ”Cry says, feeling a little guilty. “I guess I _am_ a dummy.”

“Maybe we’re _both_ dummies,” Pewdie corrects him instead, his voice sounding pensive. “We’re both too stupid to realise we actually need to look after each other.”

The realisation that comes with this statement surprises Cry because for the first time he’s aware of the way he had been treating Pewdie throughout their months of travel. Despite their long-term friendship before the arrival of this new zombie age, he had viewed Pewdie more as a travelling companion and looting partner – someone whom he didn’t mind having to hop along for the ride and who kept a lookout for zombies while Cry scavenged for supplies. With these roles, Cry had assumed that he and Pewdie would automatically have each other’s backs in any perilous situation and give the other the morale boost they needed to keep themselves going. Yet this was only done for the good of their team. Cry didn’t even consider the notion of looking after Pewdie as someone he actually _cared_ about.

Except that maybe he does now, after that initial scare that Pewdie might have gotten bitten, at the realisation that Cry can easily lose Pewdie altogether. Perhaps it’s time they change their attitudes towards each other. Perhaps it’s time they start taking care of one another not just out of necessity for their survival.

“You’re right,” Cry says, giving Pewdie an encouraging smile. “We’re all we’ve got after all. And I’m not mad. About what happened before. Not anymore. We’re okay, Pewds. We’ll be okay. We’ve done pretty well so far. We’ll get through this. What do you say, buddy?”

He’s satisfied to see the corner of Pewdie’s lip curl upwards into something of a smile before the other man glances down at his bandaged hands and, despite his sorry-looking state, releases an overdramatic sigh. Cry is glad he sounds a lot more like his old, lively self again.

“I’d give you a brofist if I can,” Pewdie murmurs sheepishly, raising his outstretched palms. “But I guess it’s not possible right now. I can barely move my fingers after all.”

With a mock-impatient huff, Cry reaches out and takes one of Pewdie’s hands, cradling it with both his own, and gently curls Pewdie’s fingers inwards into a very loose fist. He then turns it over, releases one of his hands and uses it to bump his knuckles against Pewdie’s bandaged ones. It’s the first time ever that Cry initiates a fist bump between them.

“There,” says Cry triumphantly, glancing up to see Pewdie’s astonished face. “We’re even.”

A few seconds later, Pewdie’s mouth breaks into a truly brilliant grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, the zombie priest killing scene is reminiscent of Pewds accidentally killing the priest, Father Aville, when he played one of his earlier games, Nosferatu. You've also got Cry's yellow camping blanket which, of course, recalls to mind his character in Bloody Trapland, one of the coop games that he and Pewds played. If you've also caught Cry's obvious dislike for coffee in his raiding scene (yes, he mentioned it in one of his gameplays), then a hurrah and a brofist for you.
> 
> I guess this chapter is supposed to point out a few things - firstly, the difference between Pewds and Cry's reactions when they'd killed their first zombies. While Cry's response is a mixture of emotions which he then dismisses after he's done, Pewdie's is one of extreme shock, to the point where he can't help but break down from just how overwhelming the experience is. It's also one of the rare times that he exposes his vulnerability to the world and to Cry in particular.
> 
> Secondly, I needed Pewds and Cry to wake up and realise that working together as a team isn't enough for them. They've got to realise that they actually genuinely care for each other and are afraid that they can't go on if one of them dies. So voila, here's Pewds going, "Maybe we're both dummies."
> 
> I also had to revise the zombie priest killing scene because I wanted a more realistic way for Pewdie to use the crowbar as a weapon. Contrary to popular belief, one of the things that actually make the crowbar an ineffective weapon for killing zombies is the length (this can be fixed if you have a longer crowbar) or the danger of getting the curved end stuck somewhere and leaving you momentarily defenseless. So yeah. Pewdie's method here was quite risky but it worked.
> 
> Finally, the Pewds praying scene is an idea by my fellow writer, who pointed out I should put it in for kicks because we don't see a lot of those in zombie stories. It's a time for Pewds to reflect on his thoughts and get his bearings again. It's also something that needed to be pointed out in general anyway: when you're scared and alone, who do you turn to in order to become brave again?
> 
> As always, feedback - comments and kudos - of any kind are appreciated. Please drop one if you enjoyed this so far.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 12K+ monster chapter. Lucky you.
> 
> Feel free to replenish your mugs of tea as you sit back, immerse yourselves and enjoy.

**10.**

“Pewds, now!”

As the zombie is propelled aside, stunned from the blow on its ear by the swing of Cry’s shovel, that’s when Pewdie charges forward and buries the sharp end of his crowbar into the creature’s eye socket. He lets it sink deep into the skull until he feels it pierce something spongy before he rips it back out, trailing blood and brain matter. The creature gives one last croak before it collapses to the ground and lies still.

“Nailed it,” Pewdie gasps for breath and tries to wipe away the spots of blood dotting the front of his jacket and frowns when he stains it further instead. Scattered on the floor around them are three dead zombies with their heads dented inwards from the blow of Cry’s shovel and their eyes reduced to bloody holes where Pewdie had stabbed his crowbar through.

“Good job, Pewds,” Cry praises as he lowers his shovel. “Geez, you’re a quick learner. You’re getting pretty good at this.”

“Of _course_ I’m good,” Pewdie grins, slowly releasing his grip on his crowbar. “Anyway, it was _your_ idea that we do this co-op thing. It’s done pretty well for us so far.”

“You okay?” Cry asks, waving him over. “Here. Let me see your hands.”

Pewdie holds out his bandaged hands and lets Cry examine the healing cuts underneath the wrapping. It’s not long before the other man steps back, satisfied by what he’s seen and points at Pewdie’s weapon. “The duct tape isn’t coming off, is it? We could put another layer on it if you want.”

“Nope, it’s fine,” Pewdie says, trying to coolly twirl the crowbar with one hand but fails instead. The thin tool slips from his fingers and falls on the ground with a metallic clatter and he scrambles down to quickly snatch it back up, much to Cry’s amusement.

“Heheh… Probably need to work on my gripping skills a little more,” Pewdie laughs sheepishly, indicating the thick rolls of duct tape that Cry had wrapped around each end of the crowbar. Not only do they act as makeshift handgrips for easier handling but they also help protect Pewdie’s bandaged hands from becoming injured again. Pewdie is glad that Cry had convinced him to keep the crowbar even though it took a lot of effort trying to pull it out of the dead zombie priest’s head. He never did realise how effective of a weapon it can be, given enough practice.

“Give me some fives and a brofist, bro,” he says, grinning, and extends an arm to offer Cry his open palm. Cry rolls his eyes, lightly slaps the bandaged hand and lays his own palm out for Pewdie to hit in return before they finish their celebratory move with a fist bump.

“If those hands start smarting, you should hang back and rest,” Cry advises, withdrawing his fist and turning to continue their walk. Pewdie manages to catch the look of concern on the other man’s face. “You should take it easy, man,” Cry adds from over his shoulder.

Ever since they left the church two days ago, Pewdie notices that Cry keeps asking for his wellbeing. The other man continues to monitor the state of the cuts on Pewdie’s hands and occasionally asks him how he’s been doing lately. Pewdie doesn’t blame him for his constant questions since he isn’t quite sure about his own mental state as well. His first zombie kill had been a shock to him because it forced him into a battle that tested his physical strength and his will to live, his ability to react to danger as well as his own dumb luck. After stumbling away from the dead corpse, his mind had gone completely blank with shock and he was left feeling weak and vulnerable.

He never intended to break down in front of Cry in the first place. But when he sensed Cry’s arms closing in around him with that blanket, Pewdie felt a desperate urge to reach out for him just to assure himself that he wasn’t alone, that Cry was _there_ and he was alive and safe from harm. Although his unstable state had caused him to spill out his fears for the other man to hear, once he had regained his composure after that rare moment of vulnerability, Pewdie felt a deep sense of shame and embarrassment for his behaviour and his irrational words during that fragile state of his. Despite this, he feels that their talk has brought them a little closer as they seemed to have reached a new level of understanding between themselves.

So they continued their journey towards town and had gradually fallen into a new routine. Pewdie’s willingness to play a more active role in their partnership compelled Cry to ease him into getting used to killing zombies. It started out as a joint effort at first, only sneaking up and attacking when there are three to four undead creatures around, and Cry would stun the enemy while Pewdie finished it off with a killing blow. Eventually, they decided that this was a good tactic for them because Cry found that he doesn’t use as much energy if they divided the workload between the two of them. They had encountered this trio of undead creatures just as they reached the outskirts of the town they’re heading towards.

“Hold the phone, I need to listen to a call,” Cry says light-heartedly, making Pewdie pause in his tracks after they walked a couple of paces away from the zombie corpses. Pewdie remembers Cry’s excitement the first time he hears that the latter had finally caught an active transmission on one of the radio channels back in the church. He sees the other man crouch on the ground and dig through his backpack, pulling out their CB radio and switching it on. After watching Cry press a few channel buttons, the device emits a hiss of white noise before they both hear spoken words come through the speaker.

“…anyone out…fight the dead…too many of them…survivors out there…help come and meet…undown… go... radio… luck…”

“It’s definitely the same message,” Cry points out enthusiastically. It’s nice to see the hope shining in his face, in his eyes. “The same one from yesterday, the day before _and_ that first time in the church. An announcement put on loop, calling out for any survivors to come meet at sundown somewhere. At least, I think that’s what it says. Still, the message is becoming clearer the more we get closer to town.”

“Well, we shouldn’t waste any more time then,” says Pewdie eagerly, pointing up to the sun, which had already begun its descent, leaving behind a warm red-orange hue on the sky and clouds. “The sooner we reach it, the better. Come on, Cry. It’s going to be dark soon. Wouldn’t want to wander around town in this darkness, radio message or not. Those zombies do love partying at night.”

“I used to party at night too,” Cry says absent-mindedly, stuffing the radio back into his bag and gets up to continue walking. “Except that I partied at home with my videogames and occasionally my cat comes in and steals my bed.”

“Wow. Well, I wanna party at your house too,” Pewdie continues this talk because it’s so, so rare that Cry mentions their video-gaming memories these days. The last time they talked about their past lives was on the day they lost Bluey after all. Cry must be in a really good mood if he’s bringing this up now. “That way, _I_ can steal your bed before your cat does,” he adds mischievously.

“Pfft. Good luck with that,” Cry says with a snort that’s close to bursting into a full giggle.

They continue ambling down the path until they come to another stop several minutes later. The road they’re on is blocked by a long barricade of cars which had smashed into a large lorry that’s fallen onto its side, stretching from the road to the grassy plain around them. It does not seem possible to continue using this route unless they decide to manoeuvre their way through the wreckage and pass through the long queue of abandoned cars on the other side.

“This doesn’t look very safe,” Cry comments, eyeing warily at the vehicles. “I don’t trust cars. We don’t know if those things are really empty on the inside or not.”

“That’s true,” Pewdie agrees with a nod. “They could be new homes for zombies.”

“New homes for zombies?” Cry says in disbelief, shooting Pewdie a look of amusement. “Whatever happened to living in a house or running around in a city?”

“Well, if there are still survivors like us who decide to go into town, they’ve got to pass through those cars, you know?” Pewdie points out reasonably, even though he originally intended the whole thing to be a joke in the first place. “It makes sense why zombies would want to hang around there. We’re fresh meat and we’d just walk straight into them. Or they could ambush us and rip us into pieces and feed us to their little zombie babies.”

“Ugh, _no_ ,” Cry says, visibly squirming at the image. “The idea of those things breeding is just too gross for me to consider. Don’t ever bring that up ever again, Pewds. Let’s just go find some other route into this place.”

“Well, what about cutting through there?” Pewdie says, pointing to a retail park nearby. It consists of five square buildings with flat rooftops squatting together in a semi-circle located on the edge of the town a couple of hundred metres or so from the main road.

“I swear you have better eyesight than me,” he hears Cry mutter as the other man passes him when they get off the road and change direction. “And _I’m_ supposed to be the one wearing glasses here.”

They jog closer towards the retail park, not speaking for a while before Pewdie suddenly says in a sharp tone, “Wait, _stop_.” He can see the parking lot through the gaps between the large buildings and instantly spots them. Zombies. They’re staggering around the area, snarling and moaning and waiting for the next batch of living people to become their next meal. If he and Cry are planning to cut through this retail park, they’ll have to get through that parking lot infested with those creatures.

“How many?” Cry asks, having recognised the urgent tone in Pewdie’s voice and is squinting towards the direction of Pewdie’s gaze.

“A lot,” Pewdie answers because it’s definitely more than four zombies at least. The bad news is that these creatures are obviously awake, meaning that there is no chance for the two of them to sneak past them without alerting the creatures of their presence.

“Judging by the look on your face, I’m going to assume that we can’t go stealth mode on them,” Cry says, noting Pewdie’s grim expression. “Okay, we’ve just got to find another way. Like, uh, if we can’t get past them on the ground, then we could try… oh. Oh wait, what about that?”

Pewdie had already spotted whatever it is that Cry is pointing at. One of the shops of the retail park – a clothing store by the looks of it – seems to be undergoing partial renovation because the back of the building that is not facing the parking lot is covered by a scaffolding structure comprised of metal tubes and wooden scaffold boards. On the shop’s first floor, they spot one of the large windows missing a glass panel, allowing them a possible way into the inside of the building.

“That could work, right?” Cry murmurs, glancing back at him with a smile.

“Thank fuck it’s just a shop and not a creepy-ass asylum full of crazy people that we’re climbing into just so we could get to the town next door,” Pewdie comments with a sigh of relief.

He and Cry make their way there with minimal noise and find construction equipment and materials dumped around the scaffolding structure – a cement mixer, a faded yellow hard hat sitting on a mound of bricks, some shattered glass, a couple of dozen bags of dried cement, a toolbox or two. However, there doesn’t seem to be any way of climbing onto the structure without the use of a ladder. After a minute or two of quick searching, they find nothing.

“I don’t suppose we could just climb using the tubes holding this thing together, eh?” Cry huffs in exasperation. “Or maybe we could just jump and hope to reach that board over there.” He motions towards a clear opening between two metal frames that he is sure is the place where a ladder should have been.

“Let me see if I could reach it,” Pewdie says, crouching in preparation to jump. He springs from the concrete ground as high as he can, extending an arm into the air and finds that his fingers don’t even brush the edge of that wooden board. When he lands back down and glares up at it, he’s suddenly hit with a brilliant idea.

“Cry, I could boost you up,” he says excitedly, averting his gaze towards the other man who blinks in surprise at the idea. “I could boost you up and you jump and climb on that board and then help me up. Come on, Cry. Let’s do this.” He waves the other man over.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Pewds,” says Cry, gently jostling him aside to squat on the concrete ground instead. He rests his back against the metal tubes that form one of the skeletal frames holding the scaffolding up and knits his fingers together to make a footrest for Pewdie to stand on. “Seriously, how can you support my weight when your hands are bandaged that?” he adds with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah, I thought so. Shut up and get over here. We’re losing daylight.”

“You don’t need to point out my obvious disability,” Pewdie whines with a pout. He plants his foot onto Cry’s cupped hands and finds some handheld support on the scaffolding frame that Cry is leaning against. Pausing for a while, he lowers his gaze and meets Cry’s watchful one. “Are you sure about this?” Pewdie can’t help but ask.

“We’re about to find out,” Cry says dramatically in a gruff, Texan drawl. “Let’s get on with it, Pewds.”

“Here we go,” Pewdie mutters and presses his foot down, feeling Cry’s hands shake and sway from the strain. Once Cry steadies, he lifts his other leg up and places his foot onto the other man’s shoulder. The scaffolding frame he’s holding onto becomes a good support to heave himself upwards and soon enough, he’s able to take his foot off of Cry’s cupped hands when he transfers most of his weight onto the foot that’s currently standing on Cry’s shoulder. He suddenly hears the other man swear underneath his breath.

“Holy fuck – you’re – _heavy_ ,” Cry gasps and Pewdie feels the tension on the other’s shoulder from his weight.

“Are you saying I’m _fat_?” Pewdie accuses in a flippant manner, pretending to feel offended. He finds it momentarily difficult to find some balance on Cry’s unstable shoulder so he begins to climb back down.

“No, no – what are you _doing_?” Cry snaps in return, making him stop moving. “Just – keep fucking going. I’ll be fine. Can you – ah, can you reach – it?”

“You probably need to stand up while I’m on your shoulders,” Pewdie tells him, stepping back onto the shoulder. “Then I could probably reach it.”

“Goddammit,” Cry mutters, sounding as if he isn’t looking forward to this next bit. “Okay. Just – let’s get this over and done with.”

For the next minute or two, Pewdie mutters a series of apologies as he tries to stand and balance on both of Cry’s shoulders without tilting back and falling. He’s aware that he can’t see where he’s stepping on because a displeased Cry lets out an irritated snap of “ _Ow,_ my ear!” when Pewdie feels his ankle knock against the side of the other’s head, almost kicking his cap off.

“Alright, Cry,” says Pewdie, having found a firm footing on top of both of Cry’s shoulders. His gaze is directed upwards at the edge of the board that he aims to climb onto. “You can stand and lift me up now.”

“Okay – hang – on,” Cry grunts from under him and Pewdie can hear him grasping the frame he’s leaning against with one hand while the other loosely grips Pewdie’s ankle for support. He slowly and shakily stands at full height, lifting Pewdie higher into the air until the latter is able to grab the board with both arms. Scrabbling for purchase, he gets a good grip on the wood and carefully swings one leg up, feeling his boot hook onto the edge of the scaffold board.

“Any – time now – Pewds,” Cry grunts, his voice stifled in his throat and Pewdie wastes no time digging his heel into the board and propels himself upwards, leg first, using all of his limb muscles. Although the effort strains his entire body, Pewdie puts everything he’s got and scrambles onto the board. He lies on his side and gasps for breath, feeling his arms and legs burn from the exertion and the weight of his bag pressing down on his back. He can’t believe that he actually made it.

“You okay?” he hears Cry’s voice call from below him. Pewdie scrambles back up and peers over the edge, finding Cry looking up at him while massaging his shoulder from under his collar. Pewdie can see that the skin around that area had turned red and sore.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” he replies, before lying on his stomach and extending his arms down for Cry to take. “Come on. I’ll pull you up.”

He watches as Cry bends his legs and launches himself into the air but his outstretched fingers don’t even reach Pewdie’s. After a few more tries, Cry stumbles backwards after he lands on the ground, panting, and shakes his head in defeat. It seems that they had underestimated just how high the scaffold board really is.

“It’s no use. Damn board is too high. I can’t reach you,” Cry gasps, taking a step back. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure something out. Maybe I could put some things together and make like a ladder and climb up.”

“Good idea,” Pewdie praises, sitting back up on his haunches. He’s pleased that he and Cry seem to be thinking on the same wavelength since they’re considering the same kind of solution. It’s something that’s been apparent with them these days. He points over to the pile of building materials and says, “Use those cement bags. They look sturdy enough. Put them all together and climb onto them.”

A few minutes later, Cry is clambering up a makeshift pyramid made up of many cement bags. When he reaches the peak, he grabs hold of Pewdie’s outstretched arms and, with some combined effort, he pulls and lets himself be dragged upwards. Once he tumbles onto the board, he and Pewdie sit back together and catch their breath for a brief moment.

“Phew. We should work on that a little bit more. The whole boosting up thing,” Cry pants, taking off his glasses to wipe the sweat off his face. “I’m alright,” he adds when he spots Pewdie’s concerned gaze. “Let’s just get inside.”

They walk along the length of the scaffold boards and reach the gap between the windows, climbing inside to find the interior of the shop floor draped in shadows. From what little sunlight is left coming from the windows, they can just about discern the display racks holding a variety of female clothing stacked behind a shop dummy or two. Large, colourful banners hang from the ceiling, fluttering slightly from the breeze outside. A display cart had fallen over onto its side, spilling out a cluttering pile of hair accessories and bottles of nail polish onto the floor. As always, it’s silent and eerie in here but that doesn’t mean that they’re entirely safe yet.

“Come on,” Cry murmurs, motioning over to the other side of the floor where they spot a flight of stairs spiralling down to the previous floor. A curve of small square windows are set alongside the steps and when Pewdie and Cry stop at one of them, they see that the windows provide a view of the parking lot outside.

“Zombies,” Cry points out grimly, unconsciously tightening his hold on the strap of his shovel. “It still looks like we can’t sneak past them on ground level.”

“So we go higher,” Pewdie suggests, tugging Cry to another flight of stairs leading up to the next floor. “Get to the roof. Maybe we’ll find some way to get across the buildings.”

“Let’s hope so,” says Cry.

Thankfully, they find a door on the highest floor which leads to the rooftop. It’s bolted shut so Pewdie gets the privilege to pry the screws off the hinges with his crowbar. When his effort produces loud clanging noises that echo down the staircase, Cry shoots him a glare to counter his sheepish grin.

“Yeah, I should probably be a little quieter, I know,” Pewdie says apologetically and pulls open the door.

They emerge to see a magnificent sunset above them and the horde of zombies below when they peer over one side of the flat rooftop they’re on. Pewdie thinks he’s never seen so many active zombies in one place so far, not counting that time during their first raid at that hardware store. He watches them totter together all over the parking lot, passing by abandoned vehicles, looking like a swarm of crawling bugs. When he retreats from the edge and casts his gaze around the rest of the rooftop, he immediately spots a stack of different sized wooden boards followed by a hand saw, a couple of cement bags, a toolbox and a bucket of nails. The rooftop of the next building isn’t too far away on his left and some of those boards seem long enough to reach it.

It turns out Cry has the same idea as well.

“It looks like the construction workers haven’t finished building this place,” he surmises quietly, walking over to the collection of materials. “That’s why there’s this pile of stuff right here.”

“How suspiciously convenient,” Pewdie comments, pretending to stroke an imaginary beard before he crouches by one of the wooden boards, examining them further. The planks of wood seem thick enough to hold a grown man’s weight. Pewdie takes hold of one end of the board and says, “Come on. Let’s carry this to that end of the roof and see if we can make a bridge. If it works, we’ll use it to get to the other buildings too.”

“On three?” Cry says, going over to grab hold of the other end of the board. Once Pewdie finishes muttering their countdown, he pushes himself to his feet and lifts his end up with both hands, making sure that he coordinates his movements with Cry’s. The board doesn’t feel too heavy in his hands and they begin shuffling sideways together, shooting encouraging remarks at one another across the length of the wood. Once they reach their destination, it takes them some time and a little bit of cooperation to aim one end of the board towards the rooftop of the next building. Except that the damn thing turned out to be a little too short because it keeps missing its mark.

“Why did you pick this one?” Cry grumbles irritably, struggling to balance the wood in his hands.

“I thought this was the longest one,” Pewdie grunts back, shaking a little from the exertion. “Look, let’s just bring this back in and go get another one.”

They set the plank of wood aside and trod back to the pile, selecting what they believe is the longest plank of the lot. Once more, they shuffle sideways to carry the board from one end of the roof onto the other and again they extend the plank outwards, reaching towards the next roof’s edge. It’s difficult work trying to lift and balance and aim at the same time but after a few minutes, they finally manage to set the wooden board down and create a bridge for them to cross.

They take a minute or two to rest, catching their breath and gazing at the makeshift bridge they just made, including the sheer drop down below into a narrow alleyway between the two buildings. Two staggering zombies had just wandered into that lane, probably attracted by the sounds of the board hitting the edge of the rooftop. Luckily, the creatures have yet to identify the source of the noise and are just snarling quietly on the spot, bumping lightly against the walls.

The more Pewdie stares, the more he realises what they’re about to do; realises that they’re a couple of storeys high and that the ground looks far away underneath them. He instantly feels his stomach twist with unease, his vision tilting slightly from the sensation of vertigo, and he quickly pulls away from the edge.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Pewdie murmurs quietly, taking another step back and swallowing his dizziness. “I don’t know if I can trust this thing. I’m having doubts about this one, bro.”

“We can’t stop here now. We’ve got to do this,” says Cry, trying to keep his voice down. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. The board’s sturdy enough. See? It doesn’t even move. We’re lucky that these rooftops are flat and levelled.”

When Pewdie still remains unconvinced by his words, he adds, “I’m not comfortable with crossing either but we don’t really have much of a choice here, Pewds. Might as well carry on. If it makes you feel better, I’ll hold onto the board so it doesn’t shift anywhere. You just watch your step and whatever you do, don’t look down. Okay?” He then reaches out and touches Pewdie’s shoulder, “You can do this, buddy.”

Cry’s hand is warm and comforting and the contact does alleviate some of the uneasiness that Pewdie feels. He averts his gaze on the view before him, over the rest of the rooftops that they have to go across, knowing that he and Cry will have to work together to pick up and place the same plank on a new roof every time they reach a new building. He sighs in defeat.

“Alright,” he says shakily, adjusting the straps of his backpack, feels for the crowbar to make sure it’s tied securely against it, and puts one foot onto the board, climbing onto it. He feels his heart skip a beat when he sees how his path forward is flanked by nothingness and a long drop down. “Fuck. This is crazy. I must be crazy. Shut up, Pewds. Just do it. Okay, here we go.”

He’s surprised to find that Cry had been right about the wooden board being sturdy and stable because it doesn’t so much wobble or sink under his weight. The only problem that Pewdie faces is that he has to maintain his balance on the board, inching himself forward by putting one foot after the other without any support to hold onto. His hands itch to grab onto something but there is nothing to reach for except thin air.

When he thinks he’s almost halfway across, a moderate breeze suddenly rustles through him, pulling him out of his concentration. The sound of the breeze seems so loud in his ears that he freezes in his tracks, not daring to move because he’s terrified at the idea that the wind might knock him off the board. Suddenly, he’s aware that he’s alone and vulnerable up here and that there is nowhere to run without slipping and falling to his death below. He is tempted – oh so tempted to glance down, but he fights against this urge, feels his limbs shake on the spot as he continues to stand still, feels his heart beat a pounding rhythm, accompanying the inevitable wave of panic that’s rising in his chest.

“Pewds,” he hears Cry’s voice, spoken quietly from some distance behind him, float into his hearing. “Pewds, can you hear me? Don’t try to look back. Just listen to my voice. You’re doing great. Don’t look down. Don’t even think about it. Just focus on getting to the other side. Keep looking straight ahead. One foot after another. You’re almost there, buddy. You can do it.”

“I can do it,” Pewdie mutters shakily, echoing Cry’s encouraging words. “I’m almost there. Don’t look down, Pewds. It’s gonna be okay. Just keep going. Ha-ha. This is fucking crazy. Don’t look down. Almost there. Almost there.”

He coaxes himself to move again, hears Cry continue to quietly cheer him on from behind him and focuses on shuffling forward, ignoring the distant sounds of zombies snarling far below him as he concentrates on reaching the end of this makeshift bridge. Eventually, after what feels like years of not being able to breathe properly, he steps off the end of the board and stumbles slightly when he hits solid ground, his legs shaky and threatening to collapse from underneath him. The only thing that stops him from doing so is the thought that they’ve got three more rooftops to cross before night time approaches.

I did it, Pewdie thinks triumphantly, turning back to see Cry watching him carefully from the other rooftop. He lifts up a hand and waves, hoping that it is sufficient enough to tell the other man that he’s alright and that’s when it occurs to him just how far away Cry seems to be from the other side of their makeshift bridge. Pewdie can hardly believe that he had actually crossed that wooden board without even looking down.

He watches with his heart in his mouth as Cry mounts the bridge and begins to slowly shuffle across it, arms spread outwards to maintain his balance. Pewdie can see him breathing heavily and raggedly as he edges forward and Cry’s gaze is firmly locked on him, lips fluttering as he quietly reassures himself not to look down.

“Almost there, Cry,” Pewdie murmurs breathlessly, uncertain of whether the other can even hear him so he smiles encouragingly instead, lets it widen the closer Cry gets to him. When the other man is just a few paces away, Pewdie reaches out and Cry automatically grabs onto his forearm, wrapping his hand tightly around it for support. With one quick jump, he makes it to the roof and wobbles on the spot, almost falling onto Pewdie who quickly steadies him back on his feet.

“God, that was terrifying,” Cry mutters, breathing long and hard; his hand still gripping hard onto Pewdie’s forearm. “Come on. Let’s quickly get across to that next rooftop. We’ve got to reach the last one over there before it gets too dark to see anything.”

“Wow. Imagine having to walk across a plank of wood at night with just a flashlight,” Pewdie says musingly, half-joking and half-serious about the subject.

“Yeah, I’d fall on the first step too,” Cry replies with a shudder and crouches by the board. “Okay, partner. Time to be manly and haul this thing over to that side.”

It takes them half an hour to repeat the same procedure of carrying and setting the wooden plank between two buildings to create the makeshift bridge for them to cross over. It is during one of the crossings that Cry accidentally glances down and sees just how far the ground beneath them really is. Pewdie notices the colour drain from his face, the realisation dawning in his eyes before he suddenly sways on the spot. For one heart-stopping second, Pewdie’s afraid that Cry is going to tilt over and fall off the side of the board.

“Cry!” Pewdie whispers frantically, hoping the slight breeze he’s feeling up here can carry his voice over to Cry’s ears. “Cry, don’t look down. Look here. Look at me. Yes, that’s it. I’m here. Come over to me. Don’t look down anymore. Keep your eyes on me. Just keep going, bro. That’s it.” He breathes a sigh of relief when Cry regains his composure and begins to shuffle forward towards him.

When they finally cross over to the last building of the retail park, the sun had already vanished from the horizon, leaving the sky above them dark and black. Only a small smattering of thin grey clouds float across that space, partially hiding the slit of a crescent moon and the twinkle of a single bright star.

By then, he and Cry are exhausted from the strain of carrying the wooden board across every rooftop, of walking and balancing on it with nothing to support their hands except their own will and their encouraging words to one another. They take several minutes just quietly resting for a moment, gazing up at the night sky; feeling the familiar sensation of camaraderie for each other, having bonded further from their collaborative experience.

“It might rain again, Cry,” Pewdie says tiredly, pointing to the sky and the grey clouds. “Or it might not. We should probably get some rest inside. Might not be good for us out here. Zombies below us and everything.”

“Yeah, I agree,” says Cry, rummaging through his backpack for his flashlight before standing up and switching the light on. “I see a door right over there. I guess that’s our way in.”

Less than ten minutes later, Cry picks the lock on the door instead of letting Pewdie pry the screws off the hinges again. They greet a dark landing littered with footprints that have stained the walls inside and the stale odour of cigarette butts in the air. A flight of stairs leads down to the floor below.

“I wonder what kind of shop this is,” Pewdie murmurs out, his voice echoing around the stairwell. He watches the way the beam of their flashlights bounce on the walls as they make their way downstairs.

“Another clothes shop maybe?” Cry says with a shrug in front of him. “Or a supermarket?”

“A supermarket would be bad though,” Pewdie points out as they reach the landing and stop in front of a closed door. “There are always zombies in supermarkets. All the movies say so.”

“Let’s hope it isn’t,” Cry mutters, lowering his shovel from his shoulder so that he can grip it in his hand. “You ready?”

“No,” says Pewdie, nervously tugging his crowbar out from where he strapped it against his backpack, finds the duct taped handgrip in his bandaged hand. He takes a deep breath to brace himself, watches Cry turn the doorknob and push it open. They slip through the door and shut it behind them, pausing on the spot to take some time to survey their surroundings while carefully listening out for any noise to alert them of any immediate danger nearby.

At first, Pewdie is confused by what he sees as he casts his beam of light over a display of wine glasses hanging from a wooden bracket suspended above a fancy marble kitchen counter. From what he can see from Cry’s light, there’s another kitchen counter that’s an island type with two white stools tucked underneath it and a bowl of fruit placed in its centre. When Pewdie swings his light elsewhere, the beam shines from the wine bracket to a soft partition which separates this kitchen space from a bathroom decorated with pink and blue tiles. There’s a little stand that holds a catalogue of some sort and when he scrutinises further, he can just make out a list of prices for a selection of bathroom sinks. That’s when he figures out where they actually are.

“It’s a furniture shop!” he and Cry murmur out at the same time, their voices cutting through the silence. Cry shoots him a knowing look from over his shoulder and a sheepish grin.

“Well, that’s a first. I guess we could rest in here,” he says, making sure to keep his voice quiet. Then he says a little more solemnly, “Check for zombies?”

The floor they’re on is fairly large and they take no chances in scanning the place out, checking every nook and cranny for any signs of zombies while they make sure they don’t stray too far away from one another. While they explore the floor, they pass an impressive array of stylish bathroom and kitchen furniture. It’s a little strange that the place seems untouched by the chaotic events that happened outside. Nothing looks like it had been taken from its place, no cabinet or drawer had been searched and the only sign that people had been here last is an overflowing trashcan near a pair of escalators that lead to the floor below.

“No zombies,” Pewdie reports, after peering behind a shower curtain when he reaches the last bathroom display. He then walks back over to Cry, allowing himself to relax. “I think we’re okay for now. Phew. Wow, I’m fucking starving, Cry. Let’s go eat at that table over there. Yeah, the pretty one that I’m shining my light on. Yes, that one.”

“Okay, okay,” says Cry with a good-natured giggle, letting Pewdie drag him through some kitchen/bathroom displays to reach the kitchen area in question.

It’s in a beautifully simple and homey country style design consisting of wooden cabinets and shelves painted in a soft cream shade. There are plates stacked on a dish holder next to the steel sink and a pot of plastic plants set on the counter, next to what looks like an old-fashioned lantern. A couple of cookbooks are wedged underneath a cabinet and the table that Pewdie had been referring to sits in the middle of that kitchen area. It’s a wooden, square structure shaded in brown and green colours which complement the blue mug and the small stack of brown plates set on its surface. Two matching chairs furnished with cushioned backrests are tucked neatly underneath it.

Cry comes over and picks up the lantern, examining it closely with his flashlight. “Hey, this one doesn’t use gas,” he points out, holding the object up for Pewdie to see. There’s a battery compartment on its underside and luckily for them, they have a good supply of batteries catered for any kind of device.

They quietly eat one of their last packed meals on the table under the light of the lantern. They still have plenty of water to keep themselves going for another day or two but once their supply finishes, they need to find another source as soon as possible. Just as Cry scoops up the last spoonful of his meal, he leaves it in the Tupperware container and rummages into his bag instead, pulling out the CB radio and turning it on to quickly find the desired channel.

“This is fo… anyone alive out… don’t fight… dead…” the radio hisses out the incoherent message. The voice is becoming clearer now, the words sounding more pronounced than before but the entire message is still incomplete, seeping out in chunks. “Too many… escape and keep away… if there… survivors… you need help come… meet… ga…”

Pewdie watches as Cry leans his ear closer to the radio, his eyebrows furrowed with concentration.

“… not there… radio tow… careful… good luck…”

When they hear the message for the second and third time, they don’t have much luck trying to catch the rest of it. In the end, Cry shuts off the radio, puts it in his bag and sits back thoughtfully, ignoring his unfinished food.

“So let me try to figure out what we’ve heard so far,” Pewdie murmurs, carefully manoeuvring his spoon with his bandaged hand. “I think what they said was: ‘If there’s anyone out there, like survivors, don’t fight the dead people because there’s too many of them. You should escape instead. If you need help and some food and shit, come and meet somewhere, not there but maybe at a radio tower. And for fuck’s sake, be careful on the way so don’t get killed or eaten or turned into a zombie. Good luck and Godspeed. Love and kiss-kiss, the messenger of this message.’ Okay, how’s that?”

Cry lets out a soft chuckle that Pewdie thinks sounds rather pleasing in his ears and says, “That sounds kind of legit when you say it like that. But come on, let’s not jump to conclusions just yet. We need to make sure we know where we’re going. So once we reach the middle of town, we’ll be able to listen to the whole message in no time and then follow whatever instructions it says to get us to someplace safe.”

“Whatever you say, Cry,” says Pewdie, putting the lid back on his now-empty Tupperware container. Afterwards, he reaches across the table and steals Cry’s spoon and puts the last scraps of the other man’s food into his mouth.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Cry says, blinking at Pewdie’s unexpected act. But the corners of his lips are quirking upwards, as if to smile or to laugh.

Pewdie snorts, “Were you even going to eat that? You weren’t, right? Admit it. You’re too caught up in thinking about that radio that I had to stop you wasting perfectly good food. Did you know there are poor, starving children out there like in Africa or some shit who can’t even afford to eat the stuff we have? What happens if we run out of it? You should be ashamed for wasting food, Cry.”

“Ha-ha, yeah, fuck you too,” Cry says, laughing.

“Oh ho. Snappity snoop. That ain’t the kind of language you should use at the dining table, son,” Pewdie mock-scolds, shaking his head disapprovingly. “You’re a fucking disgrace.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s enough. Time for bed,” Cry waves off those somewhat familiar words with a smile, quickly clipping the lid of his empty Tupperware container shut and pushes it aside. He then rifles through his bag to take out a water bottle and his blanket which he uses to wrap around his shoulders. “Do you want to take the first watch? Or do you want to rest first?”

“I’m cool. Not the least bit sleepy,” Pewdie says, taking out his own blanket. “I’ll wake you up after a couple of hours.”

“Okay then,” says Cry, settling back against the cushioned backrest of his chair, stretching his legs out across the floor. He gulps down a few mouthfuls of water and then pushes the bottle towards Pewdie. “Here,” he offers. “Better save the last two bottles we have for later.”

Pewdie gratefully takes it, downing the rest of the water in one go. When he emerges, he finds Cry leaning back against his chair, wrapped up to the chin in his yellow blanket, gazing blankly at the table before him. There’s eager anticipation in his expression. A glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“I’ve got a good feeling about this,” he murmurs breathlessly and Pewdie isn’t quite sure if Cry is speaking to him or just assuring himself. “About the radio message. That it’s calling out for anyone who needs help. A really good feeling.” He then lifts his head up, meets Pewdie’s stare and his lips curl up into a smile. “What?” he asks, his voice shaking slightly with laughter. “Why are you looking at me like that? You think we’re not going to make it?”

“Pffft. What are you talking about?” Pewdie snorts, casting the other man a look of incredulity. “Of _course_ we’re going to make it, Cry.”

 _Because you’re here with me,_ he adds quietly to himself.

“That’s the spirit,” says Cry, sounding satisfied as he dims the lantern on the table before leaning back his head and closing his eyes.

About two hours later, a bored Pewdie steals Cry’s cap and wears it on his head and continues tossing and catching a plastic apple that he’d found earlier into the air. It had gotten to the point where he is sitting with his chair leaned back on two legs and his feet propped onto the table. Before him, Cry sleeps, slumped into his folded arms with the blanket over his shoulders.

It isn’t long before Pewdie feels an urge to go to the bathroom and he curses for the inconvenient timing. He still has at least another hour until he wakes Cry up and take a break from keeping watch. Maybe he can wait just a little longer.

Except now his mind is too distracted from his surroundings, the plastic apple that he tosses keeps missing his jittery hand and he’s lowered his feet back onto the floor, his leg bobbing up and down in restlessness. In the end, he thinks, fuck it. I’m waking Cry up right now. A man’s gotta go do his thing when he needs to.

So he reaches across the table and shakes Cry awake and the other man stirs and lifts his head from his arms, his eyes squinting and his glasses comically askew.

“Mmm… Pew…?” Cry mumbles, pulling his glasses off to rub his face. “Whuh… what’s happening? Is it my turn already?”

“Sort of,” says Pewdie, as he impatiently drums his fingers onto the table. “Bro, I’ve got to go take a pee break right now. You okay just chilling here? Because I _really_ need to go.”

“Alright,” Cry says sleepily with a yawn, sitting up and stretching his limbs. “Don’t take too long. Make sure you check for zombies before you do anything. Wouldn’t want to get your dick bitten off by accident.”

“That’s not funny,” Pewdie mutters, lightly chucking the apple at Cry which hits him in the middle of the chest and ricochets back onto the table, knocking lightly against the dimmed lantern. He tugs his crowbar from his bag and gets up from the table. “I’ll be right back.”

“Wait, wait,” Cry mumbles as he squints up at him. “You’re not going _outside_ to take a piss, are you? On the roof? Because that would be _uncivilised_.”

“Fuck no, I’m not that kind of person,” Pewdie almost reels back at what Cry is hinting at. “Although that _does_ sound kind of fun. Maybe we should do that sometime.”

“Ughhh… just _go,_ will you?” Cry groans blearily, rubbing his groggy face again. “Toilets are near the escalators. Don’t get lost now.”

“On it,” Pewdie gives a two-fingered salute, flicks on his flashlight and dashes off in search for the toilets. He takes a wrong turn and finds himself back at the door they first came through which turns out to be the emergency exit. There’s even a conveniently placed fire alarm pull station and fire extinguisher mounted on the wall nearby.

Pewdie adjusts Cry’s cap on his head, sighing exasperatedly for his terrible sense of direction before turning back to retrace his steps, passing the kitchen/bathroom displays until he reaches the other end of the floor. When he gets to the escalators, he spots the universal bathroom signs hanging from the ceiling and tiptoes down a corridor that leads to the public toilets.

The area he’s in is pitch black and he realises just how alone he is armed with his flashlight and crowbar in hand. He stops in his tracks, casting the beam of his light into the toilets where it shines over cold marble tiles, dry porcelain sinks and eerie bathroom mirrors.

Okay, this is fucking creepy, Pewdie thinks. His heart begins to pound hard against his chest. Agitation claws its way up his throat. His breathing sounds loud in his ears. He stiffens when he thinks he hears a scraping noise echo from somewhere in the distance. Pewdie nervously gulps down his mounting fear.

Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.

 

Cry is used to feeling tired to the point of exhaustion. It’s one of those things that’s par for the course when you’re constantly vigilant and on the move. However, this is one of the rare times that he is properly exhausted that he just wants to sleep until the morning without forcing himself to wake up and run from danger.

When Pewdie shakes him awake to tell him he needed to take a toilet break, Cry lifts his head, noticing that it feels uncomfortably stiff and that his glasses are almost falling off his face. Half-asleep, he murmurs to Pewdie about being cautious and careful when alone and watches through squinting eyes as the other man leaves their kitchen area and heads towards the door which they had come from. Cry feels tempted to call out and tell him that he’s going the wrong direction but he’d rather laugh at Pewdie’s face once the other man returns to their kitchen table, pretending that he didn’t get lost on the way.

Eventually, as he sits there idly toying with the plastic apple on the table, his eyes grow heavy and soon exhaustion takes over and he slumps back down, chin pressed onto his wrists and he assures himself that he just needs to rest his eyes for a minute or two.

A sudden noise pulls him back into consciousness and he thinks it sounds a little like his shovel blade scraping against the floor. Cry blinks and raises his head a little from his hands, peering at the other side of the table to see a dark shadow standing still, looking as if it had been caught doing something it shouldn’t have.

 _Pewds?_ Cry frowns a little, wondering why Pewdie is being so secretive like this. He can’t see the other man’s features very well because the light is too dim so he reaches out his hand towards the lantern, trying to brighten it a little more.

However, the moment he makes a move, the shadow staggers a little and Cry catches a glimpse of a pair of frayed jeans stained with dots of blood that trail all the way up to a dirty cowboy styled belt buckle.

The last time he checked, Pewdie does not wear any of these items.

Instantly, Cry is fully awake and alert, alarmed by the thought that they must have missed something when they examined the entire floor. Where did this creature come from and how the hell did it wander all the way over here?

Cry remembers putting his shovel on the floor, underneath his chair somewhere and he silently pulls back his hand so that he can reach down to retrieve it. Except that he can’t do that without taking his eyes off the dark figure and leaning down to the floor to search for it. Instead, he quickly thinks up a plan. He’ll risk searching for his shovel but will have to do so while making as little noise as possible. However, in case he does happen to draw its attention onto him, Cry will have to kick the table over so that he’s able to buy enough time to grope around for the shovel and defend himself before an attack.

So he shrugs off his blanket and shifts his legs underneath the table towards one side of his chair, realising with relief that there’s still space for him to ease his way out without moving his seat. Not taking his eyes off the shadow, Cry puts his feet on the ground, slides out of his chair and slowly stands up.

And that’s when something grabs him from behind.

Cry is so taken aback by the surprise attack that he doesn’t yell out. He thrashes wildly in the arms that are grappling him by the shoulders, tries to squirm his head away because he’s expecting a set of teeth to sink into his neck anytime, and then desperately swings a hard kick backwards onto its leg. When the heel of his boot connects with something solid, he hears a grunt of pain in his ear and the grip on his shoulders loosens, giving him a window of opportunity to escape. He rips himself free and turns, readying for another kick towards the kneecap so that the creature will buckle and crumble to the floor, becoming temporarily defenceless and open to attack.

I’ve got you now, motherfucker, Cry thinks; feeling the fear and rage and excitement rush through his form.

But he is stopped from doing anything more when something else grabs hold of him from behind, dragging him backwards, and he curses himself for his own stupidity for forgetting that there was already another one of these things in the kitchen area with him which he’d originally planned on killing first. Once more, he fights hard against it, tries to forcefully wriggle his way out of its arms and find some way to kick it down to the floor. At the same time, he feels around his belt for his Swiss army knife which he took to bringing it with him again and unsheathes it with his hand, intending to stab the creature in the eye in case his flailing kicks don’t work.

He glimpses the shadow figure which he’d first attacked recover from his kick before it limps over to him frantically wrestling to break free from its companion’s clutches. Its arms shoot out to seize him by the lapels, pulling him down, and something collides into his stomach hard, knocking the air out of him. Cry gasps in surprise, feeling his stomach explode in pain, his grip on his knife loosening and slipping out of his fingers to clatter onto the floor. The arms that are holding him let go and he collapses onto the ground, twitching and wheezing for breath, clutching the spot where he had been hit.

“–esus, _fuck_ , Jim. Y’alright?” he hears a male voice float over his head.

“Yeah, ‘m fine, Alistair. Just that my fucking leg still hurts,” grumbles another male voice and Cry senses limping footsteps treading closer to him. “Thanks to this little _shit_ ,” the voice adds with a heaving grunt.

And the pointed end of a boot rams into Cry’s stomach for the second time and he buckles from the sharp blow, coughing and choking for breath. His eyes sting with tears and he sees dark spots blink across his vision, feels sharp pain sail through his form, paralysing him. He thinks he’s close to throwing up or losing consciousness because he hasn’t felt this much pain in ages. Just what the hell is going _on_?

When he opens his eyes and his vision focuses, he sees a man – a real, living, breathing man who wears a cowboy styled belt buckle – step over his curled up form and walk over to the table to adjust the lantern’s glow, throwing the rest of the kitchen area into light. Cry glimpses a bearded jaw, a rugged pair of shoulders and the tired, wrinkled blue eyes of a man who appears older than his forty years. He casts a scrutinising glance at Cry and says over his paralysed figure, “Do you think he’s one of Silva’s boys?”

“Probably is,” grunts his unseen companion.

Cry’s mind finally clears a little and eventually, he finds himself becoming bewildered by this recent turn of events. He realises that he didn’t just wrestle with a pair of undead zombies who had wandered close to him. He had lashed out against two living, breathing, talking men – the first human survivors whom he encounters for a long, _long_ time. For the last couple of months, he and Pewdie had travelled around, feeling like they were the only two people left in the world. Now, they have finally come into contact with people.

“What’s he got in there, Alistair?” asks the man named Jim and Cry is sure that this is the one who had landed the kick onto his stomach. “Lots of loot?”

Cry watches Alistair, the man with the belt buckle, drag his backpack closer, unzips it and begins to inspect the contents inside. Instantly, he feels his anger reawaken, tries to sit up despite feeling sore from the pain, and sharply snaps, “ _Hey_! Don’t you fucking touch that–!”

“What the hell? Stay down!” Cry feels a hand roughly grab onto the back of his collar, yanking him away from Alistair and he glances up and sees his handler’s face. Sees wild red hair, lots of freckles and a one-day stubble. Cry is surprised to find him almost the same age as he is, if not a few years younger than him. The other man is glaring down at him through sleep-deprived eyes that’s ringed with dark shadows and one corner of his lip is lifted upwards in a snarl like that of a displeased, ginger bulldog.

The outrage that Cry already feels at the realisation that these two people have come to steal his supplies further fuels his hatred for these two men, particularly towards the younger man, Jim. One look at the redheaded man standing above him had already made Cry hate him enough that he intends to crush his balls with his shovel the moment he finds an opportunity to break free from his clutches. So he fixes his most intimidating, defiant glare up at him, unable to stop himself from breathing heavily through his rage, from cursing inwardly in his head at the other man.

How dare you? Cry thinks furiously. How fucking _dare_ you look at me like that? Who the fuck do you think you are? Stealing all my shit? You’re all fucking dead. I am going to bash you up for kicking me in the gut, you stupid bastard. When I’m done with you, your friend’s going to be next.

However, that thought of retaliation completely disappears when he feels something cold and metallic press onto the back of his neck. He freezes, unable to believe it at first.

It’s only when he hears a click of a safety cap that he realises what it is.

Oh god, he thinks in horror. Oh god oh god oh fucking h–

“Don’t think about doing anything,” Jim warns, pressing what Cry is sure is a fucking _gun_ harder onto his skin. “Or I’ll blow your head off your fucking neck.”

The warning leaves Cry momentarily speechless, caught between the fear and distress that’s rising in his throat and the rage that’s already simmering in his chest. On one hand, he’s not sure what he’s more terrified of – having a gun aimed at his face where he can see the trigger being pulled to end his life, or having it where he cannot see it and therefore no clue when it is he will die.

On the other, he’s appalled that he’s being threatened with a gun and is forced to stay still while he watches his and Pewdie’s hard-earned supplies being taken away from him. He can’t believe this crap. After all they’ve been through, he ends up getting ambushed and mugged in a fucking furniture shop. This isn’t fair. This is _bullshit._ He isn’t going to sit back and look helpless and weak in front of these two idiots. He wants to show them that he isn’t someone to fuck around with.

“Jim, no,” Cry hears Alistair scold from the table. Sees him stuffing the boxes of cookies from Cry’s bag into his own and Cry unconsciously grits his teeth at the sight, wants to grab the boxes and shove it down their throats. “Don’t waste your goddamn bullets,” Alistair says. “And don’t you dare kill him. We’re not murderers.”

“He damn well could’ve murdered me,” Cry hears Jim mutter above him. The gun to his head hadn’t so much shifted but Cry ignores that. Knows that fucking Jim doesn’t have the guts to pull the goddamn trigger.

“What the hell–” Cry manages to growl quietly amidst his heavy, ragged, angry breathing. “The fuck are you guys doing? Those are _our_ things.”

“‘ _Our_ things’?” says Jim and he bumps his foot against something that Cry can’t see behind him which he guesses must be Pewdie’s backpack. “So there’s another one of you?”

The tone of interest in Jim’s voice causes Cry to momentarily falter in his words. “Not anymore,” he quickly says instead, hoping that his voice doesn’t betray his lie. He’s afraid that these two will hunt for Pewdie once they finish him off and he cannot let that happen. “I lost him a couple of hours ago,” Cry continues on in a grim tone. “From those zombies outside. He’s one of them now. I kept the bag. You’ve got no right to take those. Go get your own shit.”

Alistair pauses for a moment, as if surprised by his words, and then shoots him a bewildered look. “You must be one of Silva’s newer kids then,” he murmurs and then sighs wearily. “Look son, I’m sorry about this,” he continues apologetically. “And I’m sorry about what happened to your friend. But there are rules in this town. We fight for supplies. It used to be finders-keepers when it comes to raiding but things have been harder to get these days. So much harder that we’ve come to the point where we’re just taking it from each other. We’re all desperate, I know. But all of us have gotta live too. We got people – families to feed. So no hard feelings, kid. Consider yourself lucky we haven’t killed you yet.”

The explanation does nothing to reassure Cry but makes him angrier instead. He’s so full of rage that he barely notices that his hands are shaking against his lap and that there’s a gun pressed against the back of his head, ready to blow his brain apart. This is bullshit, he thinks instead. I don’t care about any fucking rules. I’m not letting a couple of bandits jump me and nick all our shit. I am going to _break_ your fucking faces, you sons of bitches.

“You’re not breaking anything!” Jim suddenly snaps at him, yanking on the back of his collar and prods the barrel of the gun onto his skin. Cry tenses, realising that he had just muttered that threat aloud for the two men to hear. “If you so much move,” Jim snarls. “I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

“Will you _really_?” Cry finds himself saying in a reckless sneer, despite the tension in his shoulders, despite the fact that his very life is on the line.

“What did you _say_?” Jim yells, sounding ready to break.

“Jim, _no_ ,” Alistair says sharply, shooting a warning glare at the younger man. “Put the gun down.”

“Yeah, and this guy will probably end up kicking me in the face,” Jim shoots back, breathing almost heavily in rage as Cry is. “Damn it, I’m not taking no chances after everything that’s happened to us. After Sandra and Steve got killed when we let that looter go out of sympathy. Or the time when those fucking bandits broke in and stole half of our supplies and Gracie couldn’t even save her daughter from dying because there wasn’t enough medicine. And Lily was already reaching her third birthday too, you know that? You don’t even… not after...” his voice suddenly breaks and he suddenly sounds upset, full of hurt. “After Ben–”

“We’ve been through this before,” Alistair says sadly even though he’s giving the other man a stern look. “And yes, I know we shouldn’t have let Ben near that goddamn housing estate. But just let it go, Jim. We’ve got the others to think about.”

“You _saw_ those things–” Jim grits out as he struggles to speak through his suddenly uneven breathing. “Those dead fuckers. All of them. Just jumped on him like a pack of wolves. He wasn’t even around any of the houses. Just out on the main road. Stupid and careless like he always is. But he didn’t deserve to get eaten alive like that. Torn into pieces. We couldn’t even save him. I can’t–”

“Jim,” Alistair says softly. “This isn’t the time.”

“Maybe this _is_ the time,” Jim says and he seems to have forgotten that Cry is still sitting there, struck with newfound realisation because Cry remembers stepping outside their safe house to discover a group of zombies gorging on a man by the main road a couple of days ago. Dear _lord_. Could that have been the unfortunate Ben? _Geez_. He can just imagine how traumatic it is to witness your companion getting ripped into shreds and eaten by zombies. How that experience can tear you up bad from the inside.

“Jim,” Cry hears Alistair say again, grimly this time. “No.”

“You’re always saying ‘no’,” snaps Jim and somehow he’s withdrawing the gun from the back of Cry’s neck to gesture at the air around him. “You don’t want to talk about Ben. You don’t want to get sad about it. But he was your nephew so I know you’re even more upset about what happened to him than I am. So yes. Maybe this _is_ the perfect time to talk about this.”

“Jim, you’re not thinking clearly again. You need to calm down,” Alistair says, a note of anger apparent in his otherwise carefully chilled voice. Suddenly, Cry feels increasingly agitated because he feels Jim’s fingers shaking where the latter is still gripping him by the back of his collar.

“I _am_ fucking calm,” Jim barks, sounding not-so-calm at all because his previous words seem to have no effect on Alistair. “I know I get a little nervous once in a while and–and I, I sometimes can’t control my own feelings and–and _fuck_ it. I’m _calm_ , Alistair. So don’t you tell me that I’m not! I’m just… Ben is–”

“Goddamn it. Don’t go swinging that damn gun around, will you?” Alistair all but abandons his delving through Cry’s bag and is motioning wildly for Jim to follow what he says.

“I’m not swinging anything around–!” Jim starts to say before the gun suddenly goes off in his hand.

The ensuing gunshot is so shockingly _loud_ in his ears that Cry jumps a mile at the sound, unaware that he had let out a scream at the unexpected noise. He barely catches a glimpse of the kitchen area flashing red because for one terrifying second, he thinks he’s been shot.

Now he’s shaking violently in the aftermath, his body numb and incapable of moving from the shock, and he’s whimpering and blabbering words which are incoherent and nonsensical under his breath. The blast had left his ears ringing a high-pitched _ping_ which scrambles his thoughts and he finds himself unable to breathe properly. His breathing has become quick, shallow and erratic. All that anger, that rage and murderous intent which had simmered inside of him, all of that daring boldness, that bravado that he had possessed – all of that had somehow vanished, leaving him vulnerable to the absolute terror and panic that’s quickly creeping into his bones, ready to overwhelm him with it.

Shitshitshitshitstopitstopitstopitstopitdon’tshootmedon’tkillmedon’t– is what goes through his frenzied, frightened, panic-stricken mind and he isn’t really sure if he’s thinking it or snivelling it aloud. _Please_ justletme _go_ letmeoutofheredon’tshootme _please_.

“What…fucking hell…im…?” Alistair’s voice goes in and out of focus amidst the high-pitched ringing in Cry’s ears. “What…told you…holding that gun– god-fucking- _dam_...probably drawn every dead thing…attention….to us!”

“…was an accident!” Jim screeches. “I swear...didn’t mean–!”

“This...like…housing estate...again!” Alistair is berating sharply and the fact that he doesn’t sound as calm as before isn’t helping the situation at all. “...flimsy trigger finger...you shot that car and drew the dead onto us... we couldn’t shut...fucking car alarm!” Alistair roars, throwing his hands up in frustration.

“Damn it...told you...was an accident!” Jim says, his voice breaking in a frenzy and Cry’s hearing finally begins to clear and it occurs to him that he’s actually babbling out, “ _stop, stop, stop, stop, stop_ ” over and over again without knowing it. Jim notices because he suddenly shouts, “And you! Shut the fuck up or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”

Cry flinches when he senses Jim point the gun at his head again and fights to keep his whimpering voice in his throat but fails. He’s unable to listen to the rest of Alistair and Jim’s heated exchange because he finds himself caught between two choices – to try to escape from their clutches now while they’re distracted by their argument or to stay put and think of another plan. Except that he knows that he will die if he so much moves. Except that he knows that he will die the longer he stays here because something will eventually set Jim off and make him pull the trigger. Cry’s inability to choose what to do in this unbearably stressful situation renders his mind to go completely blank like a computer freezing when too many programs are running at the same time. He’s never felt so utterly helpless like this before – being unable to think, unable to act, unable to do anything except to wait for the moment when a bullet blasts his head apart.

And this – this is the worst thing that could happen. This is what scares the _fuck_ out of him.

No, no, no, no, no, _no_ – Cry feels his agitation and his distress rapidly climb as he hears Alistair and Jim’s yells become increasingly hysterical and he can’t focus on what they’re saying, doesn’t know when it’s going to come to the part when they turn their attention to him and kill him. Don’t do this now don’t do this now please what are you saying I can’t deal with this just let me go please, please, _please,_ no, _no_ –

“...He was going to move and kill us if we don’t do it first!” he manages to catch what Jim is saying.

“ _I wasn’t going to do anything_!” Cry finds himself stupidly screaming aloud, unable to stand the tension in the air.

“Shut the fuck up!”

“Jim, drop the fucking gun!”

“ _Do as he says_!”

“Say one more word and I swear to _god_ I’ll pull the trigger!”

“Jim _, no_!”

“Don’t! Don’t try to stop me!”

“If you lay one hand on that boy–”

“No, I didn’t _do_ anything!”

“I’m _warning_ you, Jim!”

“Just stop it!”

“Alistair, no!”

“Jim, don’t you fucking do it–!”

“I’m sorry.”

 _No_ , no, no, no, no, no, no, please – Cry is freaking the fuck out because he doesn’t know what’s happening, whether Jim is ready to pull the trigger on him because Cry can’t see can’t lift his head can’t move a muscle can’t dodge a bullet if I can’t move why can’t I fight back I can’t run can’t hide oh shit why can’t I do anything why can’t I do something I don’t know what to do I don’t know what the fuck to do I’m just sitting here waiting to die oh god please I don’t want this can’t make myself do anything I’m scared he’s gonna kill me shoot me Alistair shut up shut up don’t set him off stop it I can’t take this anymore fuck, _fuck_ , make it all stop I don’t like this I don’t know what to do just stop just end this now just end this now _just end this now_ –

And then the whole building suddenly erupts into the loud, continuous ringing sound of fire alarm bells, shattering the already tensed atmosphere, startling all three of them out of their wits. Alistair stumbles backwards and crashes into the table, making the plastic apple tumble off the edge. Jim yells, jumping a foot into the air and almost drops his gun. Cry chokes back another scream, thinks he’s been shot for real this time, thinks that he’s just had a heart attack.

“What the _fuck_?” Jim gasps, sounding frightened. His suddenly tiny voice is barely heard over the alarm bells.

“We’ve got to go,” Alistair says, suddenly composed and gathers his and Cry’s backpacks, hoisting them both on his broad shoulders. “Grab that bag you got there and let’s get out of here before the horde comes and surrounds this damn building.”

“But what about–” Jim says, motioning towards a petrified Cry.

“Forget him. Let’s go!” Alistair yells sharply before he grabs the still limping Jim and they both take off without another backwards glance at him.

The fire alarm continues to ring after they leave and it’s only about a couple of seconds later that Cry finally wills himself to move. He gasps for breath, whimpering and shaking and sobbing as he scrambles onto his shaky feet, cursing when he stumbles a little because he just wants to collapse and break into pieces, but the thought of a zombie horde coming after him forces him to focus on this new danger at hand. He quickly scans around the floor, snatches up the only things that are left behind – his shovel and Swiss army knife, and runs for his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Oh my god. Phew. What.)
> 
> Notes time. This chapter - particularly Pewdie's bit - may seem a bit long but I wanted to emphasize on the teamwork they had going on as they try to get from point A to point B in addition to how well they're getting along after the church incident. (Damn, notice just how good they seem with each other now?) If you were sharp enough, you'd recognise that the boosting up and travelling across planks of wood are reminiscent of one of the games they both played. There are other gameplay references in here too but are much more subtle in nature so congrats if you got them.
> 
> As for Cry's bit, I made him react more with rage when in a situation like this because I imagine he would use his anger to put up a bold and brave front which then crumbles the moment he realises that the gun is actually real and will definitely kill him. Also, Cry's whimpering of "no, no, no, stop, stop, stop, please, stop" is pretty much inspired by his gameplay of the game, 'Imscared'.
> 
> Alistair and Jim were a challenge to write because I really wanted to portray them as not entirely bad guys because there's a reason why they're stealing Cry and Pewds's things. Particularly Jim who isn't someone we should hate - even though we may feel that way because we're following Cry's perspective - we can't blame him for his behaviour since he's gone through a lot of trauma and is "taking no chances after everything that's happened".
> 
> Oh by the way. Cry meets people. Survivors like them. Hurrah. Or not?
> 
> Feedback of any kind - kudos, comments, blah - are always appreciated. Leave one if you enjoyed this so far. See you next chapter then.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for this rather late update. It's been almost a month since the last. Not my usual upload schedule. Much appreciation to the kudos and comments for last chapter.
> 
> Hold on to your mugs of tea, dear readers.

**11.**

The first thing he notices after leaving the dark vicinity of the public restrooms are the voices.

They sound faint, floating from the other side of the floor but in the eerie silence, they are audible enough to be heard. They are foreign voices, unfamiliar voices, _human_ voices and at first, Pewdie thinks that they must be coming from their CB radio. But the voices sound so clear and so close that the thought is quickly dismissed and he immediately becomes uncertain, tense and wary of his surroundings. He hasn’t heard a human voice apart from Cry’s for months and months ever since this chaos started. He almost believes that he and Cry are the only survivors left.

And Cry – where is Cry in all this noise? Is he speaking with the men whose voices Pewdie hears right now? Why isn’t he saying a word yet? Is he listening in on them? Is he–

 _I don’t like this, bros_ , Pewdie tells Torchy and Map, whom he has stashed into the inner pocket of his jacket. Something doesn’t feel right because Pewdie’s gut is telling him that these two new voices don’t seem entirely friendly and he thinks he shouldn’t be casually walking in on the conversation without taking precautions.

With crowbar in hand, he creeps through the many different kitchen/bathroom areas, feeling like a rat in a maze, and doesn’t dare to turn on Torchy to light his way. Instead, he keeps to the shadows, slinks his way past kitchen counters and bathtubs, tiptoes closer to the only light source on the entire floor – the lantern in his and Cry’s kitchen area.

The voices grow louder with each passing step and soon, Pewdie begins to make out coherent sentences:

“...we got people – families to feed,” a deep, gruff voice is saying. “So no hard feelings, kid. Consider yourself lucky we haven’t killed you yet.”

Pewdie hesitates in his tracks, alarmed by the words, uncertain of whether or not it could be a threat before he recognises Cry muttering something to the newcomers. It must have been offensive because his words are reacted with outrage that eventually leads to an argument between the two unfamiliar voices. It’s only when Pewdie hears the first man say, “Jim, _no._ Put the gun down”, that he understands that this is _indeed_ a threat and that Cry is in grave danger because these men have a motherfucking _gun_ and could very well be using it to shoot him dead.

What do I do? Pewdie thinks, feeling his heart pound in trepidation in his chest. What the fuck is going on there? Why are there suddenly living people here? How did they get in? Why do they want to hurt Cry? What is happening right now?

“Jim, this isn’t the time,” he hears one man say.

“Maybe this _is_ the time,” insists the other.

Pewdie ducks into one kitchen display area – a modern design with shiny steel cabinets and a marbled island counter – and crouches behind a wall partition. Bracing one hand against it, he peers over the side to catch a glimpse of his and Cry’s kitchen area which lies a few partitions further. He sees two unfamiliar men standing by the table, engaged in an increasingly heated exchange and the younger of the two is gripping the collar of a third man who is sitting on his knees. From the glow of the lantern, Pewdie can clearly see that this prisoner is Cry.

“You’re always saying no,” the redheaded younger man complains and Pewdie stares in horror as he pulls back something that he had been pressing on the back of Cry’s head to wave it in the air. A handgun.

Holy _shit_ , Pewdie thinks in alarm, ducking back into the shadows and forcing himself not to breathe too loudly lest Cry’s captors hear him. Holy shit, they really do have a gun. They’re going to shoot Cry. Shit, I need to get him out of there. But how? Maybe if I cause a distraction, one of them might leave the area to check it out and then I can tackle the other guy down and save Cry? Will that even work? Do I have the guts to take down a fully grown man with a gun without getting myself killed in the process? Fuck, this is crazy. What the hell do these people want anyway? Why do they want to hurt Cry–

**BANG!**

The sudden gunshot startles him so much that he jumps back and collapses against the wall, covering his mouth with his hands to stifle a scream, feels his heart beating hard and fast against his chest. His eardrums are ringing, making his hearing go in and out of focus. He blinks back a few tears, tells himself to breathe normally and tries to understand what had happened, whether the two men had gone and killed Cry or had heard Pewdie plotting behind this wall and had taken a shot at him instead.

I’m fine, I’m fine, Pewdie tells himself when he lowers his shaking hands from his mouth and checks himself for gunshot wounds. He realises that Cry’s cap had fallen off his head and is lying on the ground next to him. Not hurt, not shot, he thinks. Only stunned at what just happened. But Cry. Is Cry okay? Is he dead? Is it too late? Oh no. Ohpleasenopleasenopleaseno–

 _You have to go check!_ Torchy frantically whispers to him in his head. _You need to find out if Cry is alright!_

 _Pull yourself together,_ Map reminds him sternly. _Come on. This isn’t the time to freeze. You need to pull yourself together._

Pewdie shakily puts his hands over his ears, tries to will his eardrums to stop ringing and when he pulls them away, he’s able to make out the frantic shouting between the two intruders above Cry’s frightened high-pitched babbling of “ _stop, stop, stop, stop_ ”. When he peers over the side of the partition, he catches a quick glimpse of the scene before quickly retreating. He’s worried about what he sees because he can’t tell whether Cry has been hurt or not.

“This is just like in that housing estate all over again!” Pewdie hears the older of the pair yell at his companion. “Your flimsy trigger finger got us in trouble too when you shot that car and drew the dead on our tails and we couldn’t shut off that fucking car alarm!”

“Damn it, I told you that was an accident!” shouts the redheaded man. “And you! Shut the fuck up or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”

Pewdie hears Cry try to stifle his whimpering but to no success, hears him gasping for breath, trying hard not to break under the tension. He’s hit with the urgent need to do something. This is no time to be scared. This is no time to stay put, he tells himself. But what can I do? Think, Pewds. _Think._

His mind replays one of the men’s earlier words about setting off a car alarm by accident and he remembers fleeing from the old, abandoned house in that housing estate when they heard the same wailing alarm noise outside the building. Instantly, the fire alarm pull station by the emergency exit door is called into mind and that’s when Pewdie is hit with an idea that can draw these men away from the area, giving him enough time to get Cry out of here. It’s a risky plan and one that he isn’t sure is going to work but it’s the only one he’s got right now. There’s no time to doubt. No time to consider the possibility of anything else. He needs to act right now.

After picking up Cry’s cap, he puts it back on his head and gathers his crowbar and flashlight in his hands. It takes him a moment to get up from his place on the wall and when he does, he’s aware that his legs are shaking too much, threatening to fold underneath him. The only thing that keeps him from freezing on the spot is the thought that Cry’s time is running out fast. Using the objects around him to guide him forwards, Pewdie skulks his way out of the kitchen area and peers out into the darkness, wondering where the hell the fire alarm pull station could be.

“Why is this always about me?” he hears the men’s dispute as he reaches the wall and feels his way along it, squinting in the near darkness as he tries to locate the emergency exit. “You’re the one who agreed with Sandra about letting that son of a bitch go,” the younger man points out. “Look what that decision led to–”

“Don’t you dare bring this up now–” warns the older man.

“…Now Sandra and Steve are _dead_ because of you–”

Wait. No, no, this is the _wrong_ way, Pewdie berates himself when his path leads him to someplace unfamiliar. He pauses in frustration, peeved by his terrible sense of direction, especially at this critical time when he needs to get to the right place as soon as possible. He crouches for a moment, briefly blocking the men’s voices from his head, and tries to recall the correct route. The emergency exit should be on this side of the floor because he remembers that it isn’t too far away from their lit kitchen area. If he can creep over to the other side and feel his way along the walls there, he should be able to reach it. Come on. He can do this. He needs to move fast. Cry is counting on him.

“I’m _warning_ you, Jim!”

“–You’re not Mister Perfect, Alistair! So stop blaming me for all these fucking mistakes!”

Pewdie moves to the other side, crouches by the wall there and blindly creeps his way alongside it, his hand brushing its cold, rough texture. Keep moving, keep moving, he thinks. Where is it? Where is it? Where _is_ it? Where’s the fucking door?

“For god’s sake, Jim. Don’t do anything stupid! Don’t you kill him!”

“He’s going to move and kill us if we don’t do it first!”

“ _I wasn’t going to do anything_!” Oh dear god. Cry is screaming. Cry is _screaming_. Cry, hang on. Please, hang on. Please don’t shoot him. Fuck, give me more _time_.

Pewdie speeds up, his breathing quickening, his hand frantically searching and finally, he thinks he feels a doorframe, a doorknob, a door. Is this the emergency exit?

“If you lay one hand on that boy–”

“No, I didn’t _do_ anything!”

“I’m _warning_ you, Jim!”

“Just stop it!”

Pewdie finds the fire extinguisher mounted on the wall. Gets up and feels for the pull station. His fingers touch the T-bar lever and he yanks it down, hears it click into place.

 _This isn’t going to work, is it?_ is his last thought before the building explodes into a cacophony of clanging fire alarm bells that resonate off the walls. Pewdie startles at the noise, shocked that the fire alarm is working after all, before he wills himself to move, scrambling to hide behind something bulky in case the men happen to run into him. He hears one of Cry’s captors let out a yell of surprise when he squeezes himself behind a chair and holds his breath, hoping that the intruders would leave without hurting Cry.

“...Let’s get out of here before the horde comes and surrounds this damn building,” he manages to hear a voice shout above the ringing alarm.

“But what about–”

“Forget him. Let’s go!”

Fuck _yes_ , Pewdie breathes a sigh of relief when he hears thudding footsteps flit across the ground, heading towards the escalators on the other side of the floor. He grabs onto the chair and pulls himself up but almost loses his balance when it tilts back from his weight. The clamouring alarm bells remind him of the urgency of his situation and he firmly tells himself that Cry is still here. That he needs to get Cry and escape this place now.

But he’s stopped from doing anything else when Cry suddenly appears in front of him, the shovel swinging off the strap on his shoulder, and he’s fumbling to open the emergency exit. Before Pewdie can call out to him, the other man is already disappearing behind the door and his footsteps echo loudly as he thunders down the stairs.

“Shit. Wait, Cry!” Pewdie says a little too late and moves into action, tears through the emergency exit and runs after him, almost tripping on the descending steps because he can’t see anything. He switches on Torchy and continues to go down the stairs, tries not to let the panic brought on by the sound of alarm bells overcome his thoughts because he needs his mind to stay focused. He needs to get to Cry. Needs to catch up with him before Pewdie loses him in this darkness, in this chaos altogether.

“Cry!” Pewdie hollers, his voice echoing down the dark stairwell. Fuck, where do these stairs lead to? What if he and Cry end up running into the horde of zombies outside? Cry. _Cry_. Stop for a moment, will you! Stop!

The end of the stairwell leads to a half-open emergency exit door and Pewdie bursts through it and steps out to greet the cool night air and a narrow alley. One end leads to the parking lot while the other faces a wire fence and a dumpster. Beyond that fence lies the first buildings of the town and when Pewdie shines Torchy in that direction, he makes out a dark figure running away with flashlight in hand.

The sound of shuffling footsteps snap him out of his concentration and he turns to find a mass of moaning zombies, attracted by the sound of the fire alarm bells coming from inside the building, pour into the narrow alleyway he’s in. Pewdie backs away in horror, shakily raises his crowbar and falls back to the wire fence, bumping into the dumpster that had been stacked against it. That’s when he quickly realises that he is already presented with an escape route.

After quickly stuffing Torchy into his pocket, he climbs on top of the dumpster and his stupid boots make a lot of noise as they thud against the lid. Ignoring this, he hurls his crowbar over to the other side and jumps upwards with all his might, feeling his arms hook onto the top of the fence.

Come on, Pewds, he coaxes himself, knowing that the zombies are coming closer to him with every second he loses. Come on. Climbup, climb up.

With some effort, he clambers clumsily up and over the structure, narrowly missing a zombie’s outstretched hand, and lands on the other side on his back with a grunt of pain and a curse uttered in Swedish. Gasping for the breath which had been knocked out of him by the fall, Pewdie feels the back of his head throb achingly from the shock and groans at the sensation. When he lifts himself up, he sees the horrifying scene before him – zombies clawing at him from behind the wire fence, their pale faces twisted into ugly snarls. One of them has already scrambled on top of the dumpster and he knows it isn’t long until the creature finds a way to climb over the fence to get him.

“Go home, zombies. Stop stalking me. You’re not even my type,” Pewdie spits out a completely unnecessary utterance and stands up, albeit shakily and a little dazed from his fall. He then snatches up his crowbar and goes into a sprint, heading towards the direction where he’d last seen the running figure. Dammit, will he be able to catch him in time? What if he’s long gone by now? Pewdie grits his teeth at the worrying thought. Cry, Cry, where _are_ you, man? I can’t lose you now. Where did you go?

It’s difficult to run around outside with only a flashlight and crowbar, especially when he is on his own and Pewdie doesn’t like the idea of being in an area that’s likely to be infested with zombies without backup. It’s even worse when it’s night time and there is very little light to illuminate his way out of danger. When his feet hit paved streets, kerbs and unlit streetlamps, Pewdie halts to a stop and curses under his breath, swinging Torchy here and there, seeing its beam of light wash over the red brick walls of what appears to be apartment buildings. He bites back a startled cry when his light hits a mangled body draped over the roof of a car that has been stripped of its parts.

I don’t like this, he thinks to himself as he tries to calm down his fast-beating heart from the brief scare. I don’t like this at all. Fuck, where is Cry? I don’t like being alone like this. I don’t want to be alone like this. Where do I go? Cry? Cry? Where did you go? What do I do?

He wants to call out for Cry but he’s afraid that his voice might draw out unwanted company. So he stands there, mulling over what he should do, feeling small and vulnerable on the street. On one hand, his instincts tell him that he isn’t safe, that he should quickly seek out a place to hide for the night because it’s dangerous to be out in the open and in darkness like this. At the same time, Pewdie is desperate not to be alone, desperate to reunite with Cry because he’s worried that the other man might be in trouble, that he might never see him again. Shit. Shit. Shit. Oh, what should he _do_?

A sudden commotion from somewhere nearby makes him tense up on the spot and he shakily lifts his crowbar before him, staring warily at the direction in which the noise had come from. Zombies? He thinks with bated breath. Are they coming after me? Or – or maybe... maybe it might be Cry?

Pewdie inhales deeply, gathering enough courage to face the darkness and the unknown before him, clutches his crowbar and Torchy in his hands and moves. He’s never felt this tense before as he creeps along the dark street, passing the disfigured body on the car while listening out for any more sounds, any sign that danger might spring out and catch him.

When he hears a series of pattering footsteps, he can’t help but shrink back at the sound, almost tripping over the kerb. He stifles his curse in his throat and shuts Torchy off, plunging himself into darkness. He’s suddenly afraid of whatever it is that’s coming closer.

What is it? Pewdie can’t help but raise the questions in his mind. Who is it? Is it Cry? Is it something else? Is it a running zombie? Oh please don’t let it be a running zombie because that would be freaky and unfair and fucked up and I don’t think I can deal with those things because I don’t know if I’ll be fast enough oh shut up Pewds just keep quiet. Wait, is that a flashlight–? Could that be–?

A beam of light bobs up and down the road, bouncing past him, and Pewdie glimpses a running figure flash by; sees the faint glint of a shovel blade. _Cry_. He opens his mouth.

“Cr–” Pewdie manages to stop himself from yelling out, remembers that this is a bad place to make noise and draw attention to yourself. He has no choice but to run after Cry and catch him before he loses sight of him again. It’s now or never.

Flicking on Torchy, Pewdie sprints after the beam of light which seems to be bouncing back towards the direction from which they came from. He gains speed, sees himself quickly catching up to Cry who suddenly turns sharply to the right and runs towards a different direction. Bewildered, Pewdie gives chase after him; knows that if he stops now, Cry will vanish in the darkness. As they continue to run, it occurs to him that Cry doesn’t look like he’s going to stop anytime soon. In the end, Pewdie has no choice but to risk yelling out his name.

“Cry!” he calls amidst his running. “Cry! Stop! Hey, stop!”

Cry doesn’t seem to have heard him, which is worrying enough already, and Pewdie is already getting tired. He feels a stitch develop in his side and he really wants to stop and catch his breath.  

Luckily for him, he notices that Cry’s running pace is beginning to slow down, probably due to exhaustion too, and this gives Pewdie enough time to sprint faster and get within reaching distance from him. He then leaps forward, letting his crowbar and flashlight drop from his hands, and grabs hold of Cry from behind – wraps his arms around him and tackles him down to the ground.

They land on the pavement hard and the impact knocks the cap off Pewdie’s head and scatters Cry’s shovel and flashlight from the latter’s grasp. Pewdie hisses, feeling the bandages on his hands tear as they scrape against the concrete. When he lifts himself up, his arms still wrapped around Cry’s torso, he yelps when a forearm slams into his face, making him recoil backwards. He feels Cry push him off, hears him curse at him in the darkness: “Get _off_ me, fucking bastard. Come to finish the job? You’re not gonna kill me that easily. Don’t you fucking come near me–”

“Cry, wait!” Pewdie tries to say but jerks backwards when he sees the flash of something thin and metallic slice through the air where he had been. A knife. Oh shit, this is not good. They both can’t see each other’s faces because their flashlights are lying on the ground somewhere. He needs to calm the other man down before either of them gets hurt.

“Hey! It’s me!” Pewdie says sharply and yelps again when the knife that Cry carries narrowly misses him by an inch. But the brief close proximity is enough for Pewdie to see the other man’s extended wrist and he quickly seizes it, holds it tight in an iron grip so that he can stop Cry from stabbing him.

Cry suddenly goes ballistic.

“Whoa, hey–” Pewdie struggles against Cry’s violent thrashing, which is awfully similar to keeping a slippery fish from squirming out of your grasp. When he sees Cry’s other hand reach for the knife, Pewdie panics and grabs hold of that free wrist, restricting the other man’s arm movements. He hears the knife clatter onto the pavement when it slips out of Cry’s loosened grip. It doesn’t reassure him completely though. He’s already finding it difficult to fight against the flailing limbs because he knows that Cry is much stronger than he is.

“Dammit, Cry!” Pewdie grunts in exasperation over Cry’s furious swearing of “fuck you, motherfucker! Let me fucking _go_!” and tries to shake him out of whatever panicked state he’s in. When he hears Cry’s boots scrape against the pavement, he realises that the other man is trying to adjust his sitting position so that he can aim a hard kick at his chest. Now desperate, Pewdie all but throws himself on top of Cry and wrestles him to the ground. He holds down his writhing legs with his knees and pins his wrists onto the concrete ground because he doesn’t think he can fight against the other man unless he decides to strike him into submission. That is something that Pewdie does not want to do at all.

He barely acknowledges the awkwardness of their position and instead tries to see Cry in what little light they can get from their lolling flashlights. He can’t see much but he does hear the other man’s quick, ragged breathing; feels him still thrashing underneath him.

“Cry!” Pewdie says sharply once more. “Cry, for fuck’s sake. It’s _me._ It’s Pewds. It’s _Pewds_. Just stop. Stop fucking moving and just look at me. Don’t–” he pushes down harder and grips the struggling wrists even more tightly when he feels Cry shift from under his knees. “Stop! Just stop! Just look at me. _Look_ at me, Cry. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.”

He leans down to Cry’s face as close as he can get until there is only a few inches of space left between them and he’s staring down hard at the other man, trying to get his wild, panic-stricken eyes to meet his own. When they do, it takes a while for Cry to recognise him, for his struggling to cease, for him to calm down. They then end up lying there, staring into each other’s eyes for a moment, steadying their uneven breathing until their breaths eventually slow down and synchronise in rhythm with one another’s.

Then Cry blinks up at him dazedly, as if he had just woken up from a deep sleep, and exclaims in a whisper, “Pewds...!”

Pewdie pulls back from him, letting go of his wrists and releases a deep sigh of relief. “Fuck, man,” he says shakily, climbing off of Cry. “Fuck, man. You were really out of it. You – You tried to stab me, you know? Geez. Are you alright? Are you hurt? We–”

He and Cry suddenly stiffen when they hear the ominous shuffling footsteps nearby. Pewdie grabs the nearest flashlight within reach and shines it onto the noise. To their horror, a crowd of zombies are already on their way here and Pewdie senses Cry scrambling hurriedly onto his feet and gathers the shovel, knife, cap, crowbar and remaining flashlight in his hands.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Cry whispers frantically, handing the crowbar back to Pewdie. “Not safe. Dammit. We’ve got no choice but hide out somewhere. Like there. See that? We’ll target that apartment building over there. Come on. Before we get surrounded.”

When Cry takes a step forward, he staggers a bit, as if about to collapse to the ground, and Pewdie grabs hold of him in alarm.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Cry mutters, hissing in pain and he grasps Pewdie’s sleeve with one hand and his stomach with the other. “Banged my knee when you wrestled me down. Probably bruised. Don’t you fucking worry about it. We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go _now_. No time to talk. Come on.”

Still clutching onto each other so that they don’t accidentally separate in the dark, they hurry towards the building that Cry had pointed out, sensing the zombie crowd staggering after them. Pewdie’s biggest worry is that this group isn’t the only one out there and almost expects more of these creatures to jump out and surround them before they make it to their destination.

“Keep moving, keep moving,” he hears Cry whisper as the latter limps slightly beside him. When they cross the road to reach the building, Pewdie suddenly veers them to the far left when his flashlight hits a zombie wandering in their path.

Fuck, _fuck_ , Pewdie thinks when Torchy’s light picks out the staggering figures of undead creatures up and down the street they had stepped on. Where now? What now?

He feels Cry’s hand urgently tug at his sleeve and when he turns, the other man directs the beam of his flashlight to the apartment building opposite the one they originally targeted. There’s a fire escape mounted to the outside of the redbrick structure and a sliding ladder which provides access to it from the ground floor. Several of the windows on each storey are open, giving them a way inside.

After a quick nod to each other, they’re scurrying towards the ladder, dodging the grabbing arms of a nearby zombie. Once they reach it, they clamber up the vertical steps to the platform on the first level one after the other.

“Help me with this,” says Cry, motioning towards the ladder under them. With some effort and cooperation, he and Pewdie slide the ladder up along its track to stop any pursuing zombie from climbing after them. It isn’t long before they’re staring uneasily at the sight of a snarling crowd of undead creatures that had already gathered beneath the platform they’re standing on. It’s terrifying to think that if they had hesitated even for a few seconds, they would have been swallowed by the deadly horde below.

 _Top floor_ , Cry’s gaze tells him after Pewdie watches the latter’s eyes direct towards the open window that’s furthest above them before lowering to meet his own. They then begin ascending the several flights of stairs until they reach the last platform and climb through the open window, stepping into what appears to be an empty bedroom. Pewdie pulls the sliding window down but leaves a small gap to let fresh air flow into the room. At the same time, Cry goes to barricade the door by pushing a mini fridge in front of it.

Once they finish, they are finally able to catch their breath and relax. They sit together against the wall near the window and don’t risk turning on their flashlights for the sake of saving batteries. Despite the gloom, Pewdie is still able to discern a number of dark shapes around the room but it’s not enough to make out what the objects are.

After about seven minutes of mutual silence, Pewdie says, “Phew. That was a close call.”

“Yeah,” says Cry, idly playing with the unlit flashlight in his hands. “How did you get out? And how did you find me? I was coming back for you.”

“I followed you out,” Pewdie answers and then remembers exactly how it is that had led them here in the first place. “What happened back there, Cry? I just... I came and heard voices and some guy was holding a gun to your head.”

“I don’t know,” Cry admits with a shrug. “I nodded off and then when I woke up, they were there and then I got jumped and– _ouch!_ ” He suddenly doubles over with pain.

“What’s wrong?” Pewdie asks worriedly. “Are you hurt? Is it your knee?”

“Sorry, it’s just...” Cry mutters, sounding a little embarrassed as he straightens up. “Um. It, uh... it smarts a little. It’s nothing. Give it some time and I’ll start walking properly again.”

“I’m sorry I pushed you down,” says Pewdie apologetically, wanting to explain himself because he really didn’t mean to injure Cry at all when he tackled the other man down. “I called out to you and you didn’t stop. So I had to catch you somehow.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I get it, I get it,” Cry waves the apology away but flinches a little when Pewdie turns a flashlight on, illuminating their space with some light.

“We’ve got to check it out,” Pewdie says insistently, confused by Cry’s recoiling behaviour, at the way he’s wincing slightly and clutching his stomach. He extends his hand, bending his fingers in a coaxing manner towards his leg. “Come on. Let’s see that bruise you’ve been talking about.”

“Bruise?” says Cry uneasily. “No, it’s fine. Really. Maybe you should check your hands. Are they alright?”

Pewdie lifts his bandaged hands but nothing seems to be seriously damaged except that his bandages are dirty and torn from the fall, trailing bits of frayed fabric. He huffs dismissively.

“Pfft. It’s _fine_. Don’t be ridiculous, Cry. You’re avoiding this. You’ve been wounded on the field,” says Pewdie light-heartedly. “Come on. Let’s see it, that bruise on your knee.”

“...My knee? Oh, right,” says Cry faintly and complies with the request by propping his leg up. When he reaches for the hem of his pants, Pewdie sees the finger marks around the latter’s bare wrists and hisses out an exclamatory curse in Swedish.

“What? What?” Cry says in alarm, pulling his hands back and staring at him, wide-eyed.

Pewdie wordlessly motions at the faint reddish purple blemishes on the other’s skin, feeling the stab of guilt in his chest at the knowledge that he had been the one to inflict them there. Cry blinks down at the bruises around his wrists before murmuring nonchalantly, “Well, you did have to hold me down pretty securely. ‘Else I would’ve kicked you in the face or something.”

“Hah. Yeah, I know,” Pewdie says with a sheepish sigh which is meant to be apologetic. “I wonder how bad the bruise on your leg could be, eh?”

After Cry resumes folding his pant leg up, he and Pewdie both wince when they discover that the fall had resulted in a scrape on the knee instead of a bruise. The skin isn’t grazed deeply enough to draw blood but the wound looks raw and painful. Pewdie can almost feel the stinging sensation on his own skin as well.

“That looks like it hurts, bro,” Pewdie says, hissing.

“I’m _fine_ ,” says Cry stubbornly, hurriedly pushing his pant leg down to hide his injury. “It’s not like I broke my leg or anything. You don’t need to worry too much about it.”

“Still, we should get that cleaned up,” Pewdie says resolutely and turns around to extract the first aid kit from his backpack. Except that he finally realises that he doesn’t have it with him right now and from the looks of things, Cry had left his own bag back in the furniture shop as well. The other man must have forgotten to take it amidst the panic and chaos caused by his recent life-threatening experience.

“We don’t have our stuff with us,” Pewdie points out, turning back to face Cry and props the lit flashlight on the ground between them so that the beam illuminates the walls and ceiling and to some degree, their faces. “Maybe... okay, okay, here’s what we do. Tomorrow, we’ll just go back – you know, find some way to go back to that store and get our things. I know it’ll probably be crawling with zombies but we can do it, right? We could do that bridge thing again or maybe we’ll just figure something out. But the important thing is, we go get our stuff. Okay? Hey, Cry? You listening?”

He falters a little when he notices the expression on Cry’s face, which is one of unease and discomfort as if the latter knows something that Pewdie doesn’t. Instantly, Pewdie feels the beginnings of dread creep into his chest. “What is it?” he asks faintly.

“There’s no point,” Cry murmurs and there’s a note of defeat mixed with a hint of self-loathing in his voice. “There’s no point in going back. We won’t find them there. Our stuff is gone.”

It takes a while for Pewdie to respond to that. “ _What_?” he says incredulously. “What do you mean our stuff is gone? You mean, you lost it? How can you lose it?”

“I _didn’t_ lose it,” Cry says sharply, suddenly looking guarded. “They were stolen. Those guys who jumped me? They were bandits. They stole it all.”

“They stole it? How can– What do you mean they stole it?” Pewdie says, unable to believe what he is hearing because he’s trying to understand how their things could have been snatched from right under Cry’s nose when the latter isn’t looking.

“We were _robbed_ ,” Cry says emphatically, if not a little impatiently to clear up the misunderstanding. “We were robbed, okay? They got a gun. They took everything. We got nothing left.”

Pewdie continues to stare at Cry as he absorbs the latter’s words and slowly pieces together exactly what had happened back in the furniture store. What he had witnessed from behind that wall partition made a little more sense now. After getting attacked by the two intruders, Cry had been threatened at gunpoint for his and Pewdie’s supplies and was therefore forced to give them up or else get shot if he refused. Pewdie thinks that he would probably do the same thing too if he was in Cry’s position. He thinks he’d give up all of his belongings to the bandits because he knows that it’s serious business when someone is brandishing a loaded gun at you, especially in tough times like these when people can end up killing each other just to stay alive.

Even though he thinks it’s a damn shame that they’ve lost most of their supplies, in truth Pewdie has already expected something like this to happen for a while. He knows that he and Cry will likely come across situations in which they might have to sacrifice something, including their belongings, in favour of a quick escape from life-threatening danger. In this case though, he didn’t expect to lose most of their things all at once on the same night. He also didn’t expect that they were going to lose them to a couple of gun-wielding bandits.

“Fuck...” Pewdie breathes after that stream of thoughts run through his head. “But at least we’re still alive and kicking.”

In the glow of the flashlight, Pewdie sees Cry turn to fix him a hard look. “We may be alive now but this is going to be fucking hard moving around without supplies. Without food or water or medicine. We’ve also got a whole bunch of other stuff in those bags that helped to keep us going. Losing them now – it might lower our chances of survival.”

“Whoa, bro. This isn’t the end of the world yet,” says Pewdie in response to the other’s discouraging statement, putting his bandaged palms up for reassurance but pauses when he realises how ridiculous his words sound in this context. “Okay, so technically it _is_ kind of the end of the world right now because fucking zombies and all but... what I meant was that supplies, you know – these things are replaceable. We use them up and we throw them out and we go looking for more. Like we always do. So really, you don’t need to be so worried about it–”

“Yes, that’s easy for you to say,” Cry cuts in with a frown and folds his arms tightly over his chest. “‘Supplies are replaceable’? More like they’re _exhaustible_. Like fossil fuel. When you use it all up, there’s no more to go around. Then what? What happens after that?”

“Fucking hell, Cry. What are you trying to say exactly?” Pewdie yelps, bewildered at the other man’s disheartening words. He wants to mention that his statement isn’t exactly sound. Despite what Cry says, he and Pewdie will still have to struggle to find new supplies no matter what happens – whether they use them up or lose them to bandits. Why does it seem as if there’s a note of hopelessness in his tone?

“We lost _everything_ ,” Cry points out grimly. His fingers unconsciously curl and uncurl in a restless manner on his crossed forearms. “And we’re stuck in the middle of one of the most dangerous places to be in, unprepared and unequipped. If something goes wrong, we don’t have the things right now to make it right.”

So we be extra careful then, Pewdie suggests inwardly. We lose something, we find things to replace them. We make do with what we can. Really, Cry? What’s with this gloom and doom talk you’re doing right now?

“Geez, listen to yourself _,_ ” Pewdie says aloud, shaking his head at the other man. “Look, I know we’re in a shit situation–”

“That isn’t even the half of it,” Cry mutters angrily, glancing away. “We have no plan now.”

“What do you mean ‘we have no plan’?” Pewdie says, shooting the other a sharp look. He’s not pleased with Cry’s words. After all, Cry had always been the one with a plan, had always been the one who is able to focus single-mindedly on one goal, on one destination. Hearing him say something so uncharacteristic like this is discouraging, not to mention upsetting. “We always have some sort of plan,” he reminds him.

“Not this time,” Cry says curtly.

Pewdie lets out a noise of disbelief. However, something in Cry’s face tells him there’s more to the story than that. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“That... that fucking radio,” Cry growls out in frustration. “They took everything, _including_ that fucking radio. That thing was... it was–” he suddenly exhales sharply, as if overcome by some strong emotion, before he whips off his cap and runs his fingers through his hair. “I had a fucking good feeling about that stupid thing, remember?” Cry grits out, his voice shaky. “It was supposed to help us. Lead us out of here. That was it. We had a fucking plan because of it. Now, it’s gone with the rest of our crap and we don’t even... _Tch_. God, this is bullshit _._ ” Cry moves his head slightly and the glow from the flashlight catches the obvious distress on his face.

Pewdie notices it and immediately understands what the other man is feeling. He, too, shares Cry’s enthusiasm and expectation that their CB radio is their key to getting them out of here. With it gone now, there’s nothing left but the feeling of crushing disappointment and Cry – oh geez, Pewdie can imagine just how this loss must be tearing the other man inside. He sighs. “Cry–” he begins.

“If you’re going to ask me if I’m okay,” Cry’s voice sounds strangled and forced and upset. “You know I’m not.”

“I know you’re not,” Pewdie says patiently, sympathetically. He wants to reach out and put a comforting hand on Cry’s shoulder but the other man’s stance seems guarded and unapproachable. Pewdie has a feeling that Cry will recoil if he tries to touch him so he holds back for now. “You have the right to be upset about this. I get it. I understand. But you know, moping about like this isn’t going to help.”

“I’m _not_ moping about,” Cry retorts.

“Yeah, well,” says Pewdie with a shrug and gestures towards Cry’s folded arms and ragged breathing. “What do you call this?”

“Fuck you, I’m fine,” Cry mutters, glancing away and shuffling uncomfortably after being pointed out. Somehow, he seems to curl a little more into himself after that. “And don’t accuse me of things next time,” he adds offhandedly from over his tensed, rounded shoulder.

The words catch Pewdie off-guard but he latches onto them, mulls them over in his head, and when he thinks he understands the implication in them, he fixes Cry an incredulous look. “ _What_?” he says loudly with a frown, feeling offended by the allegation. It’s baffling just how quickly his sympathy towards Cry’s distress turns into cold displeasure. “I _accuse_ you? What am I accusing you of? Of letting those thieves get away with our supplies? How could you even think that? They were going to kill you if you didn’t.”

“Wasn’t talking about that,” Cry huffs exasperatedly, as if Pewdie is too slow to figure it out. “I meant like earlier on, when you accused me of losing our stuff like it’s my fault I put them somewhere and forgot to pick them up.”

Pewdie remembers saying something like that but knows he didn’t mean it the way Cry described it. He sometimes can’t help it when he throws assumptions into the air without giving it too much thought, so it makes sense that Cry would think that his tone sounded accusatory to his ears. Still, Pewdie can’t help but feel offended himself by Cry’s words so he throws his hands up in the air and says snappishly, “I wasn’t even accusing you.”

“You _sounded_ like it,” Cry shoots back.

“Well, I fucking _wasn’t_ ,” Pewdie says insistently, peeved by Cry’s attitude. “Geez, man. The least you could do is maybe... stop being like this and just be _grateful_ for once.”

“What?” Cry says warily, casting him a scrutinizing look. “What have you done?”

“I set off the fire alarm,” Pewdie reveals. “Back in that store. I set it off. Helped chase them out.”

Cry gapes at him for a few seconds, as if he’s taking the time to absorb this new piece of information. Then he blurts out in a tone of incredulity, “That was _you_?”

“That was me,” says Pewdie triumphantly and before he can say anything else, Cry’s face twists into a frown.

“Do you know how _dangerous_ that was? To set off the fire alarm like that when there’s a guy with a gun in the room?” Cry says in a reprimanding manner and Pewdie bristles at the other’s tone because it’s something that he is never keen on hearing. “It could’ve startled him enough to get him to accidentally fire another shot. He could’ve been aiming the gun at my head at that time. So even if you did set the alarm off, there’s still that possibility that I would’ve gotten shot by accident anyway. Then there wouldn’t have been any point.”

“Wha–? Just what was I supposed to do? Leave you there?” Pewdie does not like where this is going. Cry’s whole demeanour right now – the folded arms, the stubborn frown, his discouraging words – is beginning to irritate him. “I had to do _something_ and there wasn’t enough time to think up a better plan,” he points out heatedly. “I knew it was risky but I had no other choice. So don’t fucking freak out about it. It worked in the end. You didn’t get killed. You’re still alive right now. You should be grateful for that.”

“Maybe it’s not good enough,” Cry says with a harrumph and – goddamn it, Pewdie stares at Cry in wide-eyed disbelief because he’s not sure if the other man is making sense anymore.

“It’s not good enough?” Pewdie echoes the words. “Fucking hell, Cry. How can that _not_ be good enough? I don’t understand what the hell you’re talking about. Is being grateful that you’re alive no longer good enough for you?”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Cry counters sharply with an affronted glare. “What I meant is that we no longer have the necessary things to sustain ourselves. That’s why it isn’t good enough. You get me? In the long run, we’re at a serious disadvantage–”

“You’re still making this about our supplies?” Pewdie interrupts and he’s aware that his voice had risen into a screech. “Are you fucking serious?”

“I _am_ serious,” Cry barks out angrily. “Why the fuck aren’t _you_?”

“Because I don’t see it as a big deal,” Pewdie throws out his reason, shaking his head because it’s true. He isn’t that affected by the loss of their belongings as much as Cry. He’s already grateful that he didn’t lose something even more valuable to him in that incident.

“How can you _not_ see that– fucking h–” Beside him, Cry’s breathing grows heavy and his face is livid with outrage. Pewdie can’t help but tense at the sight, feeling his own aggravation build in his chest as well. “Of _course_ it’s a fucking big deal, Pewds,” Cry growls. “Don’t be stupid. I don’t know why you’re even acting like this!”

“Why am I–” Pewdie splutters in disbelief. “Why am I acting like this? Why are _you_ acting like this? So we lost our stuff. Get over it. The important thing is that we’re not dead. None of us got shot. None of us got bitten. We’re alive. We’re breathing. We’re still _here_.”

“Yes but for how _long_?” Oh Cry. Cry. Cry, you stupid bastard, Pewdie thinks helplessly. He wants to reach out and shake the other and make him understand that there are more important things than the loss of their supplies right now.

“For as long as it takes,” Pewdie spits out amidst his growing frustration.

“That’s not good enough.”

“Fuck being good enough.”

“You’re just not making any sense.”

“ _You’re_ not making any sense.” Oh, how long is this going to take until Cry stops being like this and finally understands? The latter is still convinced that his viewpoint is the right one and he doesn’t see what it is that really matters. That _Cry_ really matters to Pewdie.

“Look, let me explain this to you,” Cry begins in a steady voice after letting out a couple of breaths to calm himself down. “We can’t guarantee that we’ll find food and water here because those bandits said–”

“No, I _get_ it, okay,” Pewdie interrupts him almost rudely. “You already told me that earlier. It’s going to be fucking hard trying to cope without our stuff from now on since supplies are like fossil fuel or some shit. Yeah, I get it. I just don’t see it as much of a problem.”

Cry shoots him a dirty look. “Really?” he says, unconvinced. He hasn’t moved from his stiff, guarded position for several minutes. His arms remain firmly crossed over his chest and Pewdie begins to feel a little desperate and a whole lot frustrated after realising that his attempt at getting through to Cry still isn’t working. “Then you really don’t understand anything at all,” Cry says wistfully.

“And _you_ aren’t seeing what’s important,” Pewdie says, his temper continuing to rise.

“What’s _important_ is that I need you to understand the severity of our situation.”

“No, no, no,” Pewdie dismisses Cry’s words entirely. “What’s important is that we’re _alive_ ,” he says fervently. “That _you’re_ alive. And I’m so fucking glad that you’re alive. I mean, between you and our things, I’d save you. You’re much more important after all. You’re _far_ more important than anything else. I saved you. You’re _alive_. That’s good enough for me.”

And then Pewdie falls into an awkward, embarrassed pause, feeling terribly conscious of himself from his own words. He’s trembling slightly from the surge of strong emotions that are churning inside him – by the anger and frustration he feels due to Cry’s intractable behaviour, by the agitation rising from the hostile atmosphere between them, by the relief he feels after they had escaped mostly unscathed from another near-death situation. There is also this intense, indescribable emotion that he feels specifically towards Cry, at the fact that the latter is still here and breathing by his side. And – goddammit. God-fucking- _dammit_ , Cry, you _stupid_ , stubborn piece of shit. You just don’t understand. Sometimes there are no exact words – sometimes there are not _enough_ words to tell someone just how much you fucking _care_ about them.

“Yeah, well, a life is a life,” Cry comments as a matter-of-factly. He doesn’t seem to have noticed Pewdie’s silence or how ardently he had blurted out his words. “Of course you’d try to save it. It’s natural. You wouldn’t think twice on it. I mean, you wouldn’t let a stray dog suffer when you happen to come across one, would you?”

“That’s different!” Pewdie snaps, suddenly enraged by Cry’s casually delivered remark. “You’re not a dog!”

“Okay _fine_ ,” Cry shoots back impatiently with a glare. “I get it already. Thank you for saving my ass. _There_. You got what you wanted.”

“Dammit, Cry!” Pewdie utters a strangled shriek, tearing his fingers through his hair. He feels helpless, he feels close to tears, he feels so many things which he can’t pinpoint out. He’s so _tired_. “I’m not asking for your thanks or anything.”

“ _Well_ then,” says Cry, his gaze levelled despite his voice brimming with irritation. “I don’t get what you’re trying to say or why you’re making such a big deal out of this.”

At this, Pewdie turns his head away from Cry and the glow of the flashlight to scowl at the darkness. When he grapples for a comeback, he finds that his throat is too choked up with emotions and that his mind is exhausted, unable to offer anything to him except for one thought. Retaliation. For the first time, he feels a dangerous urge to hurt Cry. To shake and strike and beat him. To hurl verbal remarks involving the things Cry doesn’t want to talk about and watch as they slowly break him apart. And holy fuck, he’s _terrified_ by this intention of his. He doesn’t want to go there and he knows he’s capable of it if one pushes the right buttons and Cry is dangerously close to doing that. He’s not going to let that happen. He _can’t_ let it happen. Not here. Not now.

That’s _it_ , Pewdie thinks decisively. I’m not doing this shit anymore. Cry can go fuck himself.

Without another word, he gets up on his feet, grabbing an unlit flashlight and crowbar and heads into the darkness before them.

“Where the hell are you going?” he hears Cry ask him sharply, sounding alarmed. “I haven’t finished talking to you.”

“Well, _I_ am,” Pewdie gnashes out without looking back at him. “I’m _done_ with you, Cry. So fucking done. Just leave me the hell alone.”

“You really think that running away from this is going to help?” Cry says, a sneering note apparent in his voice. Pewdie can imagine the look on the other’s face and how much he’d want to kick it if he turns around and sees it right now.

“Stop talking to me,” Pewdie snaps.

“Well, fuck you,” Cry retaliates.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Pewdie blocks out everything around him and keeps blindly walking forward, away from the light into deep shadow, until he reaches the other side of the room and sits against the wall. He’s shaking with so many uncontrollable emotions which he can’t deal with right now that he curls in on himself and buries his face into his folded arms, trying hard not to scream or cry. Or both.

On the opposite side of the room, Cry falls into an angry silence and shuts off his flashlight, plunging them both into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Silly, stupid boys. Seriously, sort out your priorities.]
> 
> Whatever the case, Pewds's and Cry's heated argument here isn't about which one of them is right. Because both of their stances are right. Both are important. The only difference and the main reason for their disagreement is the degree of importance they place on each. I bet you readers never saw this argument coming. This chapter, purposely kept in Pewds's point of view throughout, is supposed to give us a feel of how much Pewdie really cares about Cry - something that Cry himself is incapable of noticing at the moment. (You kind of wonder if Cry seems to be a bit of an asshole after reading this chapter. Whoopsie).
> 
> I'm sure a few of you would have guessed that Pewds had been the culprit behind the fire alarm. If you had been attentive enough a few chapters before, you would have guessed that Jim and Alistair were present when Pewds and Cry were in the abandoned house just after Cry got attacked by a zombie. The "sudden bursts of noise" had been Jim's gun discharging and setting off a car alarm.
> 
> The breathing in synchronisation bit after Pewds tackled Cry down is really an echo of the same thing that happened when Pewdie had a panic attack back when Cry crashed the car. And no, Pewdie wrestling Cry to the ground was not intended as a teaser or anything (yesitwas).
> 
> Finally, a note about the next chapter. The thing is, I post chapters up after I finish writing the next one. In this case, this chapter took a month because I was writing up the next one. Chapter 12 is another horrible monster. A little spoiler for you all. Don't know when I'm uploading it.
> 
> As always, feedback - comments and kudos alike - are appreciated because it helps keep me going. Do leave one if you enjoyed this so far. Also, have a great Christmas and New Year, guys.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's my horrible monster.
> 
> All in its 17,057 worded glory.
> 
> Enjoy.

**12.**

Dawn is breaking as Cry wakes, curled up against the wall, shivering from the cold air that’s seeping gently into the room from the gap in the window. He watches as the black sky slowly brightens into a pale blue and listens to the world outside. Hears a composition of shuffling footsteps and a chorus of quiet moaning and snarling voices. Not the kind of music to listen to in the mornings.

It’s far too cold to go back to sleep now so Cry sits up and puts on his glasses, his muscles feeling stiff and sore, and winces when his stomach throbs in pain. He pulls up the hem of his shirt, shivering when his bare skin hits cold air, and peers at his stomach. The kick that Jim delivered last night had caused a purplish blue bruise to mar his skin. He cautiously prods it, feels it sting when his fingers brush against it, but the bruise isn’t serious enough to worry about. The pain should fade away in a couple of days or so. There is no need for him or Pewdie to fuss over it. Except... Wait. _Pewdie_. Cry casts a wary look over to the other side of the room and sees the man in question sleeping on his side with his back facing him in the soft dawn light.

Pewdie must be stressed out, Cry thinks in speculation as he recalls their argument the night before. He must be in denial of what exactly is going on. He doesn’t yet understand that this isn’t the time to stress on how alive they are because they’ve already established this general fact. They need to move on. They need to think about what will happen tomorrow and in the days to come. They need to think _ahead_ because right now, they’re in trouble.

To Cry, losing their bags feels like losing their lifelines. You can’t help but worry about the lack of essentials to keep you alive. It’s like watching your Life Gauge flashing red in a videogame and feeling the urgent need to find the means to restore it. Here, the loss of their supplies is akin to an individual losing one of their body parts. They are left feeling naked and vulnerable without it. Eventually, in worse case scenarios, they won’t be able to survive without that body part for very long – something that is true in their case. How long can they keep going without food or water?

In fact, how can they be sure that they’ll find it in this place when Alistair and Jim emphasized on the lack of it being the reason why they have resorted to stealing from other survivors? It’s this one fact that Cry had tried to inform Pewdie but was interrupted before he could tell the whole story. Pewdie had claimed that he understood what Cry was saying but why does he still not feel the same way? How can Pewds not see what I see? Why does he think that this isn’t important? He must be an idiot. Or maybe I was right about him being stressed out and not thinking clearly.

When the dawn light becomes bright enough to see the rest of the room, Cry gets up, shaking the chill from his body, and peers out of the window, seeing the crowd of zombies still wandering aimlessly below the fire escape. It’s obvious that they can’t go down this route anymore and will have to find an alternative way out of the building without running into the creatures. Cry then retreats and turns to examine the surroundings they’re in.

He and Pewdie had taken shelter in a bedroom which must have belonged to a girl once. It has walls of pale lilac decorated with flower wall stickers, particularly heavy around the frame of the bedroom door. The bed had been stripped of its pillows and bed sheets, leaving only a bare mattress behind. There’s a white wardrobe with its double doors covered with a collection of faded photographs showing the room’s former inhabitant posing with her friends and family. The wardrobe doors are hanging half open and Cry can see that there is nothing inside, only an empty space where clothes and shoes had been. Near the bed is a wooden desk and bookshelf stacked with a collection of yellow paged romance novels. There’s a computer caked in a thick layer of dust next to it and when Cry checks out the desk drawers and filing cabinets, he finds nothing of importance that he can take.

In fact, as he continues to search the rest of the room, there is nothing he can take to replace his and Pewdie’s lost supplies. When he finds the scuffle marks all over the window frame and half a footprint marking the cream coloured door, he’s sure that someone had thoroughly raided the room several times already. It doesn’t seem like he will have any luck finding anything useful for them to keep.

By the time he’s finished examining every compartment and corner of the room – including the mini fridge which turns out to be empty as well – the sun is rising in the sky and its rays spill through the window, casting a golden glow over the floor and reaching Pewdie’s sprawled form. The glare of the morning sun suddenly stirs the other man awake.

Cry watches as Pewdie slowly sits up, rubbing his groggy face with his bandaged hand and gets up onto his feet, stretching his neck and arms. He then picks up his crowbar and pockets his flashlight, makes his way to the window and stands there, staring at the scene outside through half-open, bleary eyes.

There’s a stiffness in Pewdie’s rounded shoulders, in the way his jaw is set, and there is also the fact that the other man had not yet cast a single glance at his direction. There’s some sort of distant aura that Pewdie is giving off and Cry can feel it from where he stands by the bedframe. Pewdie must still be mad at him. The uneasy tension in the air would have been the result of last night’s heated argument and the fact that they had parted words on bad terms.

As Pewdie continues to stare determinedly out the window, Cry can’t help but frown at his back, feeling a twinge of irritation in his chest from being ignored like this. He wants to say something to the other, wants to ask him why the hell is he so mad at him, wants to tell him that Pewdie can be as pissed off all he wants but at the end of the day, Cry will be the one who is _right_ all along once they find themselves stuck in some garage that’s surrounded by zombies and are dying of starvation and thirst or are bleeding out of deep gashes. He wants to tell Pewdie that if his bad mood messes up his focus and stops them from effectively working together; if his bad mood gets them both in deep shit, then they might as well kill themselves now to avoid the trouble.

He is about to tell him all of this when Pewdie suddenly speaks without looking back at him, “We should go to the radio tower. Like what the message says.”

“...W-What?” Cry stutters, taken aback by the firm, resolute tone in Pewdie’s voice. The other man sounds so sure of what he’s saying, as if his choice on their destination is absolute.

“The radio tower,” says Pewdie quietly, calmly, and motions with his head towards something in the distance outside the window. Cry isn’t sure if the gesture is an invitation for him but he goes anyway, stepping up beside Pewdie before squinting against the glare of the morning sun. The bedroom they’re in faces the rest of the town buildings which gleam in the sunlight. On the other side of this urban settlement, standing tall on some grassy land which slopes upwards, is a steel lattice radio tower, its single antenna reaching for the pale blue sky.

“The looped message mentioned something about a radio tower,” Pewdie explains in a matter-of-factly tone.

“So?” says Cry.

“It’s a destination,” Pewdie replies, his voice still levelled, almost impassive. “It’s someplace we can go to.”

“How would we know if that’s the right place?” Cry points out with a frown. “We didn’t hear the entire–”

“It doesn’t matter,” Pewdie cuts in, shaking his head slightly. “It’s a plan and it’s one that we got right now. What do you say?”

Cry breathes a sigh and hums, “I guess that makes sense.”

“Good,” Pewdie then pulls back from the window, glancing at him for a flash of a second before he turns and heads for the door without another word. Cry doesn’t have a response to that except for the feeling of astonishment towards Pewdie’s suddenly assertive demeanour. He watches as the other man pushes the mini-fridge aside and eases the bedroom door open, peering out the other side. Pewdie then lifts up his hand and waves him over, indicating that the coast is clear and that it’s safe to go.

They step out to a living room/kitchen combo and find that any essentials had already been taken by an unknown third party, much like the bedroom they had just left. The place is mostly bare and empty and only petty trinkets like framed photographs and decorative ornaments were left behind to collect dust. One particular sofa is heavily stained with blood that had dripped down the backrest and onto the cushions. The wall in which it rests against is splashed with a dark red plume of blood. Cry feels a chill creep up his spine at the sight and edges a little closer to Pewdie, who had also paused to observe the unsettling scene before quickly turning away to concentrate on finding an exit.

The building is eerily quiet as they creep along the dark landing outside and pass each apartment door until they reach the carpeted stairway that twists all the way down to the ground floor. Each floor level is fixed with a rectangular window, letting sunrays stream into the building and illuminate the flights of stairs with shafts of golden light. As he and Pewdie descend the carpeted steps, their boots toss up puffs of dust into the air which trace patterns in the sunlight.

When they reach the ground floor, they find a number of bodies lying on the blood-stained carpet, many near the entranceway. Judging from the pale, twisted faces, the corpses had been zombies that had wandered into the building from outside. Many have been shot or stabbed in the head while a few have been messily decapitated, their separated heads lying a little away from their disfigured bodies. It’s a somewhat similar sight to the one back in the deathly strip mall which they drove into many months ago. Cry shudders unconsciously at the memory; remembers the first time he feels a strike of fear at the kind of ruthless brutality that the living are capable of inflicting upon the undead.

They find the entrance doors blocked by a barricade of stacked, heavy furniture. Pewdie stands in front of it, silent and calculative, and Cry settles next to him, examining the blockade before idly reaching out to touch the leg of an upturned chair.

“There might be another way out,” Cry says thoughtfully, pulling his hand back. “Maybe a back door or a staff entrance or something.”

“No, this isn’t a hotel. There might not be a staff entrance,” Pewdie murmurs, still staring at the barricade.

“Well, the fire escape is out of use,” Cry reminds him.

“But not the windows,” Pewdie points out, a note of realisation in his voice. “The windows on this floor, in each apartment. They could be another way out. Those zombies are gathered by the fire escape. Maybe there aren’t many on the other side of the building. It’s worth a try.” He steps back from the blocked entrance and begins to walk towards the nearest apartment door.

Cry catches up to him and says, “Wait.”

Before him, Pewdie stops and tilts his head, as if he’s lending him his ears to listen, but doesn’t turn around. Cry frowns in annoyance at the other man for obviously giving him the cold shoulder. The strange thing about it though is that Pewdie is doing it rather subtly, not flamboyantly like Cry expects him to. He sees it from the way Pewdie tries to pretend that they are still getting along okay except that his gaze and body position never directly face his, his facial expression is cool and collected and his voice remains emotionless. Even his words are noticeably curt and straight to the point, composing only of facts and reasonable speculations. In fact, Pewdie hasn’t cracked a smile or a joke since he’d woken up from sleep.

When Cry doesn’t say anything, Pewdie turns his head and finally looks at him from over his shoulder. “What is it?” he says nonchalantly. His eyes are unreadable.

Cry wants to be mad at this display of indifference, wants Pewdie to quit it and be his usual, noisy and annoying self again but doesn’t know whether calling him out on it will just make whatever bad blood between them become even worse. For a second, Cry feels like apologising to him for the incident the night before just to clear this uneasy air between them except that he doesn’t want to say sorry for something he believes to be right. And anyway, Cry is still mad at Pewdie because he’d been a stubborn bitch last night and continues to be one right now. So fuck Pewds and his bad moods. We can be as shitty to each other as much as we want as long as we keep fucking moving.

Aloud to Pewdie though, Cry says, “What then? Once we get out of the building, what then? I don’t suppose we’ll be running straight towards the direction of the radio tower and hope no zombie stops us along the way?”

“Of course not,” says Pewdie, his eyebrow twitching upwards. “We’d be torn to pieces if we try to do that. The tower’s too far away. The town’s probably crawling with zombies. No, we go slowly. Take our time. Avoid the bastards. Try not to be heard. We find the clearest way to that tower without running into any trouble. You know, the usual stuff we always do.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Cry comments approvingly because it sounds like the kind of thing he would say as well.

Pewdie shrugs and turns away, “That’s because it is.”

They find most of the apartment windows on the ground floor boarded up with planks of wood but one window in particular – fixed in another bare-empty apartment with peeling wallpaper and a trail of bloody footprints – has half of its planks pried off, leaving a gap large enough for a man to squeeze through. Cry and Pewdie crouch by the window and peer out of that opening to survey the scene outside. There aren’t many zombies on this side of the building – perhaps a dozen, but even from this angle, Cry can see that there is no cover to hide behind and that these creatures are awake and seeking living flesh. Even if he and Pewdie do decide to try and take them out, the commotion they cause will draw the rest of the horde onto them. It’s far too risky to attempt that. Either they figure out another way to get through this undead crowd or search for an alternative route out of the building.

“We could sneak past them,” says Pewdie quietly beside him. “We’ll aim for that building over there. See it? In front of that car.”

“What?” Cry whispers incredulously, accompanying it with a wide-eyed look at the other man.

“We go stealth mode,” Pewdie says again, his eyes not meeting Cry’s as it’s fixed on the scene outside. “They’re awake, I know. But they’re still blind. They still can’t smell us. They can only hear us. So we be extra-quiet and sneak past them.”

“But we’ve never done this kind of thing before,” Cry reminds him and he’s aware that he’s feeling a little nervous and uneasy at the idea. “What if we screw up?”

This time, Pewdie’s eyes flick over to meet his. “Then we’re screwed.”

Of course, Cry thinks. There’s no other way to say it. There’s no other explanation to give or argument to counter that. The only solution to this problem of sneaking past a crowd of active zombies is to _not_ screw up. Perfect. Fucking, fucking _perfect_. This is probably going to end poorly.

He tenses in surprise when he feels a hand lightly touch his arm and knows it is Pewdie’s.

“We’ve got to stay close,” Pewdie advises seriously.

Cry nods, somehow feeling warmed and reassured by the other man’s touch despite his coolly delivered words. “We don’t split up. Don’t run unless we have to. Stay calm. Stay quiet. Yeah, I got it,” he finishes and Pewdie nods back in acknowledgement and turns to the window.

It feels just like their first raid again in the hardware store except that they are doing this outside, in broad daylight, with a bunch of zombies that are awake and where the slightest sudden sound can draw them onto you like a swarm of hungry flies. Cry feels his heart begin to pound in agitation at what they are about to accomplish. When he glances over at Pewdie, he sees the same anxiety in the other’s eyes as he stares forward, one hand bracing the windowpane and the other clutching his crowbar. Pewdie is also drawing long, deep breaths to calm himself down.

“We can do this,” Cry can’t help but reassure him. He notices Pewdie’s shoulders relax a little from the effect of his words before the other man nods in appreciation for the verbal support.

One after another, they squeeze through the gap in the boarded window. Cry lets Pewdie go first so that he’s able to pass his shovel through the hole to get outside without risking it making any noise. Once he lands noiselessly beside Pewdie, they huddle together in silence, watching the small groups of zombies staggering up and down the street they’re on with a wary eye. Cry surveys the road, calculating the best route to go through without nearing any of the walking undead. When he picks a fairly good starting point, he turns to Pewdie, catching his expectant gaze, and nods.

They begin to move, crouching and keeping low as they balance on the balls of their feet and tiptoe forwards, their weapons clutched close to them. Cry actually finds it somewhat easier to move without the weight of his bag on his back. It all goes smoothly for the first two minutes and they manage to cover a distance of a couple of metres but the problem starts when a zombie – a tall man in a blood-stained polo shirt and shorts showing off several hideous bite marks along its leg – happens to stagger into their path.

Cry automatically freezes on the spot and waits with bated breath for the creature to avert its direction elsewhere. To his horror though, it continues to shuffle head-on towards them and Cry can’t tell whether or not it had sensed a couple of living humans standing still in front of it like a pair of deer in headlights. He bites down his tongue when the creature becomes near enough that they can see the wrinkles on the pale, shrunken face, the white cloudiness of its sunken eyes, the lolling mouth that’s spewing out its terrible snarling voice.

The pressure to stay extremely quiet begins to test Cry’s willpower. He feels the panic quickly rising in his chest, feels the strong temptation to turn around and _run_ but – oh fuck, it’s coming closer, it’s coming closer. Should I step backwards? What if I trip? What if I make a noise? What if I screw up? I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead. Where’s Pewds? Oh god, Pewds must be as terrified as I am. I need to keep it together. Can’t have the both of us losing it at this moment.

Cry tilts his head an inch to the left to catch a glimpse of Pewdie and sees him standing still beside him with his bent legs planted wide apart, as if ready to run. He is also physically holding back his voice by pressing his lips tightly together and holding his breath, causing his face redden from the strain. Cry slowly reaches out and finds Pewdie’s forearm, feels it trembling from underneath his fingers, and squeezes, trying to gain the other man’s attention.

Pewdie’s wide eyes meet his. They’re full of fear but Cry can see that he is fighting to keep his own panic back. Cry desperately shoots him a warning stare – _Don’t move. Don’t run. Don’t make a sound. Don’t lose your head. Don’t do_ anything _at all._ Because what is there to do now? What is there to do? They can’t go forwards or backwards. Can they try going sideways? But what if the creature hears the miniscule steps they make as they shuffle out of its way? Will it know? Will it attack?

The zombie continues to hobble closer and closer with every limping, staggering step. By then, Cry is barely breathing because his breaths have been caught in his throat, along with his fast pounding heart. He almost flinches when he senses Pewdie leaning close to his side, feels the other man’s bandaged hand wrap around his own forearm in a tight grip. Cry wants to look at Pewdie but he can’t. He wants to run but he can’t. It’s too late to do anything now. The creature is almost upon them. He’s paralysed. Helpless. Bracing himself like he’s about to be hit by a powerful tidal wave. But Pewdie. Maybe if he pushes Pewdie out of the way, the other man can go and save himself before it’s too late. Maybe he can–

The zombie crashes into him, pushing him backwards into Pewdie. Cry bites back a gasp, wincing from the brief bodily contact, from the stench of decomposition that it emits, from the brush of its dry, peeling skin against his own. The zombie bounces back from the collision, uttering a confused croak and for one terrifying second, Cry sees something change in its twisted features, thinks it finally realises that the presence of its latest meal is right in front of it. After a nerve-wracking silence that lasts what feels like hours of staring up at the creature’s milky, unblinking eyes, the zombie then brushes past them, as if sidestepping a lamppost which it had bumped into on a street.

Oh my fucking _god,_ they don’t _know_ , Cry realises in astonishment, fighting back a scream of relief. They don’t know we’re people. They think we’re just in the way. Holy shit. Holy fucking _shit_. We can probably do this.

Cry isn’t even aware that he had been standing there, frozen in shock for nearly two minutes until he feels Pewdie tugging his forearm, snapping him out of his stunned daze. When he glances at Pewdie, he finds the other man’s face had drained itself of colour. Only his eyes have become focused again, burning with a spark of determination. Pewdie then gives him the tiniest of nods, coaxing him to keep moving.

Their progress forward is painstakingly slow. It’s horribly warm out here with no breeze to cool the concrete pavements and tarmac roads. Cry can feel the heat wave hit his face, feels the rivulets of sweat roll down his brow and the back of his neck. He’s tempted to take off his cap but he doesn’t want to let go of Pewdie, who has been holding onto him since the experience with that first zombie. So they continue just doing that, sneaking across the road on tip-toe, making sure their heavy boots don’t scrape too loudly over the collective sound of shuffling zombie footsteps. They halt in their tracks whenever a couple of zombies turn their heads towards their direction or stumble past them.

There’s one crazy and unreal moment in which he and Pewdie creep forwards, surrounded by a trio of zombies which are headed in the same direction as they are. It’s a weird and tense experience that Cry decides he doesn’t like. He feels horribly vulnerable and trapped in this circle, knows that the spell of invisibility which he and Pewdie had cast will break if any one of them makes even one mistake.

They manage to cover a hundred yards before Cry feels Pewdie give a quick tug towards what looks like an empty street, his glance telling him where they need to go, and Cry sees the problem immediately. If they are to change direction, they need to get out of this zombie circle which they’ve found themselves in but it’s too risky to dart through the gaps between the creature’s bodies without alerting them. There is no other choice but to let the zombie trio shuffle past them. Cry meets Pewdie’s eyes and points his finger down to the ground.

 _We stop and stay put_ , he tells him. _Let them pass. Even if they crash into us again._

When he feels Pewdie’s grip on his forearm tighten in preparation, Cry stops in his tracks and he and Pewdie crouch together close to the ground, shoulders hunched and heads leaning close as they brace for the inevitable bodily impact. Cry feels a zombie’s knee knock into his back and the creature stumbles, almost falling on top of them. For one horrifying second, its long, spindly fingers are grappling his shirt, touching the skin of his neck. But then it manages to regain its balance with a guttural moan and shuffles to the side, brushing past them in order to continue staggering forward.

That was close, Cry thinks, licking his dry lips as he watches the trio of zombies teetering away. The skin of his neck where the zombie had brushed him is tingling unpleasantly and he fights back the urge to rub the sensation away. Once the coast is clear again, he and Pewdie steal past a dented streetlamp and head towards a different street, thinking that the worst must be over for now.

Except that when they turn a corner of a building to get there, they almost crash into a zombie that’s coming from the other side. The creature jostles Pewdie’s shoulder and Pewdie makes the mistake of flinching away from the contact. The sudden movement instantly draws the creature’s attention onto them. When its arm extends outwards, Cry manages to slip a hand over Pewdie’s mouth to stop him from screaming.

Once again, they both freeze against each other just as the zombie gropes Cry’s sleeve. Cry tries his hardest to fight off the overwhelming instinct to jerk away and _god_ , he wantsto do this so _badly_ except that if Pewdie’s sudden flinching had caught the zombie’s interest, Cry pulling back his arm would alert it even more. Instead, he lets it hang there stiffly, fighting back against the force of the creature’s pull and keeping his hold over Pewdie’s mouth as he does so. A trickle of sweat drips off the side of his jaw and hits the ground.

After another nerve-wracking silence – Cry loses count after he hits 200 in his head – the zombie finally loses interest and lets go of him before staggering away. A few seconds later, Cry peels his clammy hand off of Pewdie’s mouth and relaxes a little bit.

This is so fucking _intense_ , Cry thinks, feeling the muscles on his shoulders and legs ache from the strain that he’s putting them through. All he really wants to do right now is to collapse onto the ground in a boneless heap. Goddammit, I don’t know if I can keep up with this any longer, he thinks. Fuck this. How much farther away is this place? This is so _exhausting_.

They can see the building they’re targeting at the end of a short alleyway as they resume their progress. There are more bodies lying mangled and bloody on the ground while they pick their way through that path that’s swathed in deep shadows. There’s a man whose stomach had been torn open, spilling blood and guts over his plaid shirt. A young Asian woman with her head crushed inwards like a deflated ball. There’s one of a guy who wasn’t originally a zombie, lying on his side with his dark eyes open and glassy, a bullet wound on his temple.

“Almost there,” Cry hears Pewdie whisper from beside him. He squeezes the other’s arm in response. Almost there, he echoes the words to himself. We can make it. Just hang in there, Cry. Keep moving. A little farther.

They pass the remains of a convertible, parked alongside a kerb. There’s nothing left of the vehicle for it to function anymore – no tyres, no engine, no Plexiglas windows, no petrol, nothing. Like the bed, the car had been stripped of its parts, leaving only the frame to sit and rust in the sun.

When they finally arrive at the redbrick building, they find a flower shop on the ground floor, tucked underneath a few more levels of apartment homes. The glass windows have been smashed, littering crystal shards all over the pavement and Cry has to pick his way through the mess to climb into the dark interior of the shop. There’s thankfully nothing inside except for pots of dried, wrinkled and dead plants stacked on dusty display shelves. There’s also a body of a zombie, formerly a little old Mexican lady who must have been the proprietor of the shop, lying under the counter. The flesh of her cheek had been torn out of her face and blood cakes the front of her flowery nightdress.

They retreat into the backrooms and finally allow themselves to relax. Cry slumps against the wall, pulling off his cap and running his fingers through his damp hair, feeling worn-out and weary and warm and his throat terribly dry. Pewdie settles a little away from him, breathing heavily. His entire face and neck are flushed red from the heat outside and his hair, which had been thick and fluffy when he’d woken up, is now drenched in sweat, plastered down his head.

“We made it for now,” Cry says, flicking his gaze over at the other man. Pewdie hums back in acknowledgement as he peels his shirt off his sweaty skin.

“But we got a long way to go,” the other man comments without looking at him, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

“We should also try looking around for some food and water,” Cry goes on, looking around the room they’re in. A storeroom of some sort? There’s bags of soil on the bottom shelves but the box of seeds sitting above it is empty.

Pewdie hums once again but doesn’t say anything else. There’s an awkward pause and after a while, Cry shuffles uncomfortably, unused to this air between them. Somehow he has a feeling that Pewdie is doing this on purpose – this begrudging silence that he’d fallen into and this indifference he’s displaying. It’s something that’s so unnatural that Cry bristles inwardly with irritation at the other man’s present behaviour.

He’s still keeping up this act, Cry notes with a frown, feeling a stab of annoyance in his chest. Seriously? After what we went through just now, creeping past a bunch of zombies like that and he’s _still_ mad at me? What the hell, Pewds? Seriously, what the hell have I done? What’s the big deal, really? Come on, stop acting like a jerk. Like you don’t care. This is so unlike you, man. Okay, fine. You know what? Whatever. Don’t talk to me then. I’m not the one who’s going to beg for forgiveness or soothe your goddamn sulk trip or whatever it is you’re doing right now. If that’s what you want to do to prove something, then fine. Let’s see who fucking cracks first.

However, the more that Cry fumes and rants inwardly in this tense silence, the more that it gradually occurs to him just how unnerving and unpleasant the mood between them is. He never did realise just how much of an impact Pewdie has on keeping up the spirit of their team. Cry knows that he occasionally slips into a slump at times but Pewdie had always been there to stop it from becoming worse, even if the other man gets a bit tiring and annoying at times. But now that Pewdie is in something of a slump himself, the effect is contagious and it’s affecting Cry’s mood as well. He feels angry at Pewdie for making him feel like this but also upset because he was the one who had caused it.

Goddammit. Why hadn’t Cry ever notice this before? Maybe what Pewdie is doing right now is giving him a taste of his own medicine. Or maybe he’s just really pissed at him for what happened last night that he’d had enough of Cry and decided to give him the cold shoulder because of it. The only question now is what should Cry do about it? Apologise? Set things straight? Start another argument?

“–Cry, you’re zoning out. I said we should go now,” Pewdie’s voice, uttered sternly and sounding a little annoyed, shatters his train of thoughts. Cry turns and sees the other man frowning at him.

“What?” Cry mumbles dumbly, blinking in confusion. Pewdie sighs and pushes himself onto his feet.

“We’ve got a lot of ground to cover,” the other man reminds him impatiently as he motions towards the door. “You want to check around for supplies, right? You go do your thing and I’ll watch your back like always. We don’t have all day.”

Look who’s bossy now, Cry thinks grumpily as he stumbles onto his feet and lets out a hiss when the bruise on his stomach gives a painful throb. He senses Pewdie looking at him curiously but the other man doesn’t say anything. Once they gather their belongings, they leave the storeroom and head upstairs and Cry notices as they tread softly across the landing that they’re both keeping their distance from each other.

Several hours later, Cry does not know how deep they’ve wandered into the town. They’re still a far distance away from the radio tower and if they keep going at this pace, he estimates that it might take them at least a week or more before they reach that grassy hillside.

After a couple of repeated attempts, Cry notices that he and Pewdie have become so much better at moving through packs of active zombies without getting their attention. They’ve also learned to control their impulses to run when they’re in close proximity with the creatures. The key is to pretend to be indifferent and inconspicuous, like logs floating through a slow-flowing river. If a zombie happens to touch you, you must turn into an uninteresting rock and wait for as long as you can until the creature loses interest and shuffles away. It’s one of the most nail-biting things Cry has to endure, but it does become a little more tolerable once you become used to moving around in silence.

Apart from the heat of the day, hunger and thirst become the next battle to fight against. The sensations had been gnawing at Cry for a while and he suppresses it the best he can, even though he can hear his and Pewdie’s stomachs protest at the lack of food. At every place they stop, Pewdie gives Cry as much time as he needs to scavenge for supplies. So far, they find nothing of use and it’s incredibly frustrating to notice this. Everything which can be used for long-term survival had already been taken – the obvious being food and drink. Then, there are the kitchen utensils, cookware, blankets and pillows, clothes and shoes, bathroom toiletries, toilet rolls, hardware tools, cooking gas – all of them have already been taken and it’s almost ridiculous that there isn’t anything left.

This is not good, Cry thinks as they sneak past a group of zombies wandering through the broken glass door of a looted café. They know it had already been looted because there’s nothing left on the shelves behind the counter. If we can’t find water in this place soon, Cry goes on, swallowing his dry throat and feeling it burn. We might not go on like this for much longer.

Cry isn’t the only one who feels frustrated at this discovery. Pewdie had taken to muttering his complaints to himself in Swedish at every place they raid. Cry has no idea what he is saying but he finds it even more infuriating to hear him whining in a language that he doesn’t know than to have him do so in English. He’s so tempted to tell Pewdie to shut the fuck up, to stop talking to himself in Swedish because it’s _rude_ and that he also doesn’t like the other man’s persistent indifference towards him. Yet he doesn’t do any of these things because he can’t be bothered to deal with Pewdie right now, not when he’s tired and hungry and thirsty and pissed off at the other man. So Cry maintains their silence, feels his frustration continue to simmer with every street they pass.

However, when they take cover in another dark alleyway and Cry waits as Pewdie removes the bandages from his hands without offering an explanation, he brings up their main problem and sways where he leans against the wall. His head feels faint and dizzy from the heat and the thirst. “I have a feeling there isn’t anything left,” Cry says, grumbling. “Goddammit. How are we going to...” he trails off, not wanting to say it aloud.

Pewdie doesn’t say anything at first. He peels off the last scrap of fabric from his hand – Cry notices that his cuts are still healing – and shoots him a look, “No. We can’t give up yet. There’s got to be water somewhere. If not water, at least food or something moist. Anything to stop us from becoming too dehydrated.”

“But we _are_ dehydrated,” Cry quips unhelpfully.

“Yes, we _know_ ,” Pewdie shoots back with narrowed eyes and motions for them to keep moving.

When they come across a fire hydrant on an empty street, Cry drags Pewdie to a stop and they stand and stare at it, contemplating on what to do. Cry’s not even sure if there’s still a running water supply operating but he’s too thirsty to wonder about it unless they try something out.

“Cry,” he hears Pewdie sigh beside him, looking reluctant.

“How do we open this?” Cry interrupts him instead because he doesn’t want to hear it. He crouches to study the side valve of the contraption. Tries to remember everything he knows about fire hydrants and it’s hard to think when his head is pulsating with pain.

“Unless we have some sort of wrench or spanner, I don’t think we can open this by hand,” Pewdie says, tapping the top valve of the fire hydrant. He sounds defeated, as if he knows there’s no hope for them here.

For some reason, Cry feels irrationally angry at the other’s tone. He isn’t going to turn away from a possible source of water just because they don’t have the tools to extract it. After everything they’ve done, after everything they’ve gone through, Pewdie must be crazy if he thinks they should give up now. Something then rises in Cry’s chest, fuelled by the heat and the thirst and the tension that’s been brimming between Pewdie and himself for the past few hours.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t try something else,” Cry growls irritably and stands up, raising his shovel. He smashes the blade down onto the side valve, feeling it judder violently from the metallic collision. From the corner of his eye, Pewdie flinches at the loud, clanging noise which echoes down the street.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Pewdie hisses at him but Cry isn’t listening. He brings his shovel down the side valve a second time and another loud _clang_ shatters the silence in the air. Despite his effort, the fire hydrant remains intact, undented by Cry’s blows. Pure rage begins to boil in him when he realises that his plan isn’t working. Why the fuck does it look so easy to smash these things open in the movies? he thinks angrily. Why the hell isn’t this working in real life?

Suddenly, it’s important to him out of everything else that he doesn’t lose to this fire hydrant. He’s going to get water no matter how many blows it will take, even if Cry exhausts himself. At least he can get the satisfaction of watching this blasted thing get smashed into smithereens.

When he lifts his shovel for the third time, Pewdie steps in and grabs hold of it, stopping him from swinging it downwards. Cry fixes him a glare and tries to yank it back.

“Let go,” he grits out but Pewdie doesn’t budge. The other man is also glaring back at him, not in anger but with a stern look.

“For fuck’s sake,” Pewdie hisses again, his eyebrows furrowed into a frown. “You’re making too much noise!”

“Dammit, we need _water_ ,” Cry gnashes out and – god, the word ‘water’ is making his throat burn and ache for it. A wave of dizziness hits his head, making him sway, and he’s forced to lower his shovel to press the heel of his hand onto his forehead. He noticed he’s sweating less now. Everything feels so dry to him. He exhales heavily. Tries hard to regain his focus. God, he wants to _cry_.

Pewdie is just opening his mouth to say something when they hear a sudden noise from behind them. Cry startles and turns – and takes a step back when he sees a zombie slide down a set of stairs of a redbrick building on all fours and begin to crawl its way towards them. It’s not long before a couple more undead creatures appear, spilling into the street they’re in.

“Shit,” Cry finally realises his mistake and is bewildered by why he made it in the first place. He’s usually considerate and rational about these things, especially when it concerns their safety. What on earth was he thinking? Making enough noise to draw the undead like that? It was a stupid impulse on his part. A stupid impulse that was brought on by his thirst.

“Where do we go, man?” Pewdie mutters and he’s clutching onto Cry’s arm again and backing away. More moaning, snarling zombies are arriving from every direction. Some are coming in from one end of the street. Another pair are clambering out of a broken window. One crawls out of a dumpster and rights itself up before shuffling towards them. Soon, he and Pewdie will be completely surrounded if they don’t do something first.

“Don’t panic, don’t fucking panic,” Cry whispers to himself, although that is exactly what is happening to him right now. His rage is long gone, replaced by fear at their situation. Beside him, Pewdie suddenly tugs on his sleeve and draws his attention onto a shopping trolley that’s lying on its side in the middle of the road.

“What?” Cry blinks at it, unable to understand, unable to think. When he doesn’t move, Pewdie drags him to the trolley in question and impatiently motions for him to help him lift it up.

The zombies are getting closer. There are more than two dozen of them now and the sight itself is frightening enough already. Once they scramble to set the trolley upright, that’s when Cry eventually understands Pewdie’s intention. He catches the other man’s eye and nods. They put their hands on the handle and push with all their might.

They watch as the trolley trundles down the tarmac road, clattering all the way, and instantly, the zombies jerk their heads towards the noise it is making and begin to stagger after it. When the trolley bumps into a pothole on the road, it tilts and crashes to the ground, leaving its wheels still turning and squeaking in the air. The swarm of undead creatures surround and close in on it. By the time they reach out to grab the fallen trolley, Cry and Pewdie have gone, leaving the street and the fire hydrant behind.

They slip past another group of zombies on the way to the commotion behind them and duck into a narrow alleyway that’s so small that they have to squeeze through it one after the other. Once they’re back in the afternoon sunlight, they spend a minute or two just catching their breath before Pewdie rounds on Cry.

“What the hell was that?” he demands. He isn’t shouting. He’s careful to keep his voice down but the anger is apparent in his tone, in his expression. His face still looks strained and for the first time, Cry notices that his lips are dry and chapped.

“I’m just...” Cry doesn’t like the accusatory note in Pewdie’s voice. He pulls off his cap and digs his fingers into his hair. His head is still pulsating a fast, sickening beat. He can feel it deep inside the left side of his skull, as if something is squeezing one of the hemispheres of his brain. “I’m just so fucking thirsty.”

He doesn’t hear anything from Pewdie for a while and when he lifts his head up, he sees a conflict of emotions in the other man’s face that’s too fast to read. In the end, Pewdie averts his glance, the frown still fixed on his face, and sighs, “Don’t do anything stupid like that again, okay?”

About an hour passes by and Cry is aware that their pace is slowing down even more, becoming sluggish. He and Pewdie have to stop more often and rest for longer than usual. Once, while they crouch and sneak forward, Pewdie stumbles and falls against him.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the other man mutters, shaking his head slightly and picks up his fallen crowbar. Pewdie looks terrible and Cry is sure he doesn’t look too well either. He finds himself frequently licking his dry lips, trying to swallow something down to soothe his parched throat and his empty stomach. This whole thing feels like a slow form of torture.

“Hey, look,” says Pewdie, pointing up at something on the roof of a redbrick building up ahead. Cry squints in that direction and tries to discern whatever it is that Pewdie is pointing at. What is it?

“It’s a tank,” Pewdie reveals, languidly waving his finger in the air. There’s a note of optimism in his voice. “Water tank.”

Cry draws a sharp intake of breath, feeling a spark of hope ignite in his chest. “We have to get up there,” he rasps. “We’ve got to get up there.”

Cry doesn’t recall much of that short journey. Every step seems like a hazy dream to him. Somehow, he and Pewdie manage to drift their way down that street and into the building, climb six flights of stairs and emerge on the rooftop without running into any more zombies. They find a large stainless steel water tank sitting in the middle of the landing, glinting in the blazing afternoon sun.

“There’s a tap here,” says Pewdie, motioning him over when they circle around the tank like vultures around a carcass. Cry grasps the handle and tries to twist it open but his grip is far too weak. When he tries again to no avail, he feels Pewdie’s bare hand cover his. He’s shocked to find it hot and dry, like sand.

“On three,” says Pewdie and begins to count down. Together, they twist with all their might and manage to turn the tap about an inch.

“Again,” says Cry breathlessly.

The sun continues to beat on the back of their necks as they crouch together and slowly twist the tap inch by inch. Eventually, they turn it to the point when they can’t do it any further. Cry shrugs Pewdie’s hand off and huffs a groan of displeasure.

“What the hell?” he feels so, so tired. His whole arm is tingling and his fingers are aching from the strain. To make matters worse, he feels terribly dizzy again and he just wants to close his eyes and sleep and hope that the pain in his head goes away.

Pewdie glares at the tap for a second before he reaches up and lightly pounds the side of the tank with his palm, hears it make a hollow, metallic sound. When he lowers his arm, his face is dark and grim. “Shit. I don’t think there’s any water in here,” he says in realisation. “At least, not anymore.”

“Are you telling me we went all the way up here to inspect an empty water tank?” Cry says, absent-mindedly rubbing the reddish purple welts circling his wrists from Pewdie’s grip the night before. He’s angry once again, angry that this had been Pewdie’s idea to come here in the first place. Angry at the fact that there is no water in the tank. Angry that his hopes had been crushed once again. Angry that he’s dizzy and going mad with hunger and thirst.

“It was better than smashing a fire hydrant and calling a bunch of zombies over,” Pewdie counters heatedly and he’s angry too. Or irritated. Or upset. It doesn’t matter. This had been a fucking waste of time for them both. Cry clicks his tongue in irritation and makes the mistake of standing up too quickly. A head rush hits him then, sudden and intense. He sways backwards, his vision blurred by stars, and collides against the tank, collapsing back down to the ground.

“–Geez, what were you thinking? Standing up too quickly like that? You idiot. This is no time to pass out,” he hears Pewdie scold beside him and when Cry blinks, his vision slowly clears. Pewdie is frowning at him and the distress and disappointment are apparent in his strained face.

“Fuck,” Pewdie continues to mutter angrily, pushing his sweaty hair back from his forehead. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. This is stupid. Fucking stupid. What do we do now, Cry? I thought there’d be water. Like in the safe house. But there’s nothing here. There’s nothing here. It’s so fucking ridiculous that there’s nothing at all. How is that possible? Is this whole town just dry and dead? This is ridiculous, man. What if we can’t find anything? Nothing at all? Who the fuck is taking all this water? All the food? Everything? I can’t believe this _shit_ –!”

He spits the last word just as he kicks the ground with his foot in anger. When a cloud of dust flies into the air from the impact, Cry realises with a start that this is the most that Pewdie has said to him all day.

He doesn’t remember the rest of the other man’s rant because everything goes black for a while and then the next thing he knows, he is shaken awake by Pewdie’s hand on his shoulder. Cry raises his head from where it rests against the side of the water tank and instantly regrets it. His headache returns in waves of pulsating pain and his body still feels spent. His energy had not been replenished from that period of unconsciousness.

“What the hell happened?” Cry asks, lightly massaging his temple in an effort to alleviate some of the pain but to no avail.

“You passed out for a couple of minutes,” Pewdie says and he doesn’t sound pleased. “Fell asleep just like that.”

“Well, I’m tired after all we’ve been through,” Cry tells him grumpily, slowly pushing himself to his feet. He winces slightly when the bruise on his stomach gives a throb.

“It’s this fucking thirst,” Pewdie says almost bitingly. Cry doesn’t understand why the other man seems so annoyed with him. “It’s sapping our energy. That’s why we’re like this. Sleepy and tired. It’s already a bad sign. What if you really fainted and couldn’t wake up? What then?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault,” Cry really hates the note of accusation in the other man’s voice. “This isn’t the time to lose our heads.”

Pewdie stares at him for a while. Cry imagines him taking his advice by trying to suppress his anger and distress. Finally, Pewdie says in a levelled tone, “So what now? We just keep moving?”

“We keep on searching,” says Cry because it’s much more practical than saying ‘we just sit here and bake in the sun and die of thirst’, even though it’s something he’s so tempted to say anyway. “We’ll continue on the same direction, aiming for that tower. We’ll stop and look for food and water on the way. We just keep on going.” He can’t think of anything else. He just wants to hold on to the only thought he has – to keep going until they reach that radio tower. Hopes that there is food and water and safety when they get there.

The day seems to drag on for them, the sun beating down on their weary bodies. Cry doesn’t know how much time had passed since they left the looming structure of the water tank. He’s no longer holding onto Pewdie anymore as the other man had fallen behind him once again, unable to keep up with Cry’s speed. He’d also stopped complaining in Swedish some time ago and Cry attributes this silence to exhaustion. He’s annoyed with their sluggish pace but knows that there is nothing they can do about it. Not unless the sun stops fucking shining above them and they happen to miraculously find some food and water or _something_ to replenish their energies.

Eventually, their luck changes when they stumble across an Asian grocery store. It isn’t a large one but it’s a lot bigger than an average convenience shop. Some of the letters of the store’s name had fallen off and unlike the flower shop, the display windows had not been smashed except for the double doors, which had left a residue of glass shards on the concrete ground. But that isn’t what had drawn their full attention onto it.

The lights in the store are on. White fluorescent lights are illuminating the interior of the shop, the aisles, the cashiers, the stacks of shopping baskets, the horrific mob of zombies inside. Actual, electric lights. Compared to the other buildings, this seems to be the only place around that’s supporting any. But how can there be light in a dead town like this?

“Well, fuck me,” Pewdie suddenly murmurs beside him from where they’re crouching by a street shrub, staring perplexedly at the lit store. “That certainly explains the fire alarm.”

“What?” Cry flicks his bewildered gaze onto Pewdie, unable to catch up with what the other man is saying. God, his thinking processes are slow today. He doesn’t like being like this.

“The fire alarm back in that furniture shop,” Pewdie clarifies. “It’s something that had been bothering me all morning. Back then, I wasn’t sure it was going to ring at first. You need some sort of electricity supply for it to work, right? Yet, it _did_. It _worked_. Meaning that this town is still running on electricity.”

“So there are a lot more living people here,” Cry is able to surmise from that and groans. Of _course_ this explains why everything had already been taken. He already knows that from the beginning, had already anticipated that they will struggle to find food and water because someone else had gotten them first. But where _are_ these people? Have they perhaps left town? Or are they still here? Will they help a pair of vagabonds like them?

At this, Cry immediately feels a pang of suspicion towards these unknown survivors. The last thing he wants right now is to come across another pair of armed bandits out to steal the weapons and clothes off their backs.

“Do you think there’s...?” Pewdie begins to say. He’s squinting at the shop, trying to make out what lies beyond the mass of wandering zombie bodies inside. “Do you think there’s something to eat or drink in there?”

“What? You mean in _that_ shop?” Cry thinks he’s getting what Pewdie is hinting at. “Are you saying we should go _in_ there?” Because that sounds like a crazy idea, sneaking into a shop full of zombies like this. Didn’t Pewdie mention something about going into a supermarket being a bad thing?

Pewdie actually winces at the note of disbelief in Cry’s voice before he sends him a look of exasperation. “Do we have any other choice?” he says.

“We could always walk away,” Cry replies. “That way, we don’t put ourselves in danger and get killed.”

“And then what?” Pewdie asks, although there is a note of expectation in his voice, as if he knows what Cry is going to say next.

“We just keep moving.”

“What if we can’t?” says Pewdie and he looks fed up and tired of everything. “We can’t keep going on like this and you know it. You know it, Cry. You said we’ll stop at some place and look for food and water. This is one such place and you’re not taking this chance now even after that thing you did with the fire hydrant?”

“There were no zombies that time,” Cry counters hotly.

“You made a fucking ruckus that time. This is different,” Pewdie points out. “Look, why don’t we just do what we always do? We go stealth. We sneak in. We creep past them. Don’t draw their attention. Don’t panic. We’ve done it already a couple of times. We can do this again. We both know we can do it.”

Pewdie does makes a fair point – they _are_ capable of doing it. Cry’s only worry is that their diminished state, brought on by the lack of food and water and no means to replenish their spent energy, might screw this up for them. They wouldn’t be able to perform at their best. What if one of them faints halfway through? What if something goes wrong? Is there any alternative to this instead?

Overhead, the sun has already begun its descent towards the horizon. Pretty soon, it will be dark and even with the lit interior of the store, the night is always a dangerous time when it comes to zombies. It’s now or never for them. If they do decide to go through with this, then there is no time to lose.

“Alright,” Cry finally agrees, mostly because his head hurts from thinking too much into this and that he doesn’t want to argue with Pewdie anymore. “Just a quick look-a-round. Grab whatever we can take and get out.”

They sneak out of the shade of the shrub, staying close to each other and keeping low to the ground. When they pause by the shattered entrance of the grocery store and peer inside, Cry thinks his shovel suddenly feels heavy on his back because he sees exactly just how many zombies there are. It is like all the undead creatures from the hardware store from their first raid had been piled into this much smaller space. There is still enough room to move around though but it will be like jostling through a crowd at a house party, unable to stop yourself from bumping into people. Goddammit, Cry thinks with a quiet, heavy sigh. This is probably going to end poorly.

 _Are you ready?_ he asks Pewdie when his questioning gaze meets the other’s.

 _Let’s do it,_ is Pewdie’s unspoken response as he clutches his crowbar close to his side. Together, they step into the well-lit store, passing under the gaze of a stray security camera and take care not to touch any of the glass shards lying on the ground.

It smells terrible in here – a mixture of stale warm air, aromatic spices, decomposing bodies and the sweet stench of rotting exotic fruit. Cry can see in the fresh food aisle the moulding, crumbling forms of fruit and vegetables as they rot in their compartments. He immediately feels nauseous, feels something bitter threatening to rise up his throat. The sight and smell of these perishable goods are the only things that stop him and Pewdie from coming closer to that cooled, refrigerated area. He quickly forces his nausea down and tugs Pewdie away from that aisle, willing himself to focus. For a few minutes, they crouch by the nearest cashier, where a zombie woman missing an ear languidly sits by the cash register, and figure out where to go from here. All around them, more snarling, undead creatures shuffle past, unstopping like cars in traffic.

Which way? Cry can’t see where they are, especially when he and Pewdie are squatting low like this. Their vision of the store is being blocked by the moving zombie bodies. Unless they stand up and find their bearings, they can’t do much. They need to head to a specific part of the store. But where should they go? Where should they start first?

When he turns to Pewdie, he finds the other man looking at him expectantly. Pewdie nudges his head a little at the mob of zombies before them and mouths, _Back of the shop. Find water. Canned drinks. At the back of the shop._

Of _course_ , Cry realises. Some stores sell canned and bottled drinks in bulk at the far end of the store. There is no guarantee that this shop might have the same kind of organisation but at least they have a destination now. They know where they have to get to. The only problem is getting there through this sea of undead bodies.

We can do this, Cry reassures himself. It’s just like all the other times when we’ve done this. We can do it. He adjusts the strap of his shovel, making sure that it’s secured across his back, glances at Pewdie and automatically takes the other’s offered arm so they don’t get separated in the crowd. He takes a final, quiet, deep breath and braces himself. Then, like a diver dipping into the ocean, he creeps forward and melts into the mass of zombies.

The next few moments are like another hazy dream to him and if it weren’t for Pewdie’s grip on his forearm, he would think he was sleeping all throughout. The uncomfortable warmth and stench of the store are making him feel lightheaded and dazed. He gently nudges his way through the zombies around him and the zombies in turn continue to stagger along obliviously, moaning and snarling and bumping into each other. Over these collective sounds, Cry can hear the fluorescent lights above them emit a monotonous, electrical hum. He tells himself to keep moving, to not be scared, to keep holding on to Pewdie, to forget everything around him except for one thought – to reach the back of the shop. Find food. Find water. Keep moving. One step after the other. Don’t think. Just keep going. Geez, he feels like one of the undead himself.

At long last, the mass of bodies begin to thin and he’s able to move freely again. He hardly believes he and Pewdie had slipped through the crowd unnoticed in the span of several minutes. Looking around, Cry is able to discern where they are. They’re at the end of an aisle of dried goods but most of the cans and packets are gone. A few have been prised open and emptied of its contents. A single packet of instant noodles had been torn open, spilling dried noodles and seasoning sachets. Underneath a dusty, bottom shelf lies a broken bottle of oyster sauce.

As they continue creeping forwards, they finally reach the far end of the store, passing under another security camera. There’s kitchenware stacked on the display shelves – steel woks and long, cooking chopsticks, mortar and pestle sets, sieves and wooden spatulas, porcelain bowls and plates. There are also a few large bags of rice and more packets of dried noodles. On the far right, they find what they have been looking for. A collection of canned and small carton drinks wrapped in plastic have been mounted on top of one other. There aren’t many of them left but for Cry, the sight itself is enough to lift his spirits.

“Fuck yes,” he hears Pewdie breathe very quietly beside him and they try their best not to run towards the beverages in a frenzy. There are still a few zombies about, shuffling near the shelves in the back of the shop where they are. He and Pewdie tiptoe forward, past the kitchenware and the rice bags and the wretched undead creatures before settling in front of one of the drinks stacks. They quickly examine the cans. Soya bean milk, sold in a pack of twelve. Alright then. Now, what should they do? Should they try to carry one of these packs outside? Can they do that while manoeuvring through that stifling crowd and get back to the entrance without alerting the creatures? Or should they risk it and open one of these cans and finally take that long-awaited drink?

Beside him, Pewdie is also hesitating, looking uncertain of what to do. Perhaps he, too, is considering the same options as Cry. They had reached this far and made it, had found their treasure. But what can they do with it now without encountering a new kind of risk and danger? What happens when something goes haywire? Where on earth can they escape to when they’re already surrounded by a solid wall at one end and a mass of zombies at the other? At this realisation, Cry curses inwardly to himself. _Idiots._ They should have thought about this problem _before_ they entered the store, not afterwards.

In the end, Cry makes that first move anyway. He blames it on his hunger and thirst; that his weakened state is scrambling his rational thoughts. He briefly fumbles with his Swiss army knife and once it steadies in his hand, begins to carefully saw through the clear plastic that’s covering the pack of canned drinks. He thinks, if he and Pewdie can just grab a couple of cans and safely make their way out, it is enough for now.

Pewdie is silent and patient beside him, watching him work. He also keeps throwing glances over his shoulder every few seconds or so, as if wary that something could attack them at any moment. The nearest zombie is a short and portly Asian man with broken glasses and a bulging paunch that’s been split open to expose its bloody guts. They can see it begin to shuffle its way towards another aisle. They should be safe for now.

But Cry had thought that too soon.

Because when he reaches into the pack of beverages to take out a can of soya bean milk, his grip on the can is far too weak and it slips from his fingers the moment he lifts it. Cry fumbles to catch it but misses, managing to stifle a curse in his lips and Pewdie freezes beside him, eyes widened with horror, his hands reaching out in alarm.

Helplessly, they both watch as the can hits the ground with a dull _clank_ , bouncing up once and clattering back down before rolling away. And fuck, the _sound_. The sudden sound seems so _loud,_ breaking the drone of snarling and moaning zombies wandering around the rest of the store. Instantly, the one that had been shuffling to a neighbouring aisle lifts its head in attention and turns back, staggering straight towards them. The few zombies nearby have also heard the noise and are already on their way, their movements awkward yet frightening.

Cry scrambles to free the shovel that he’d swung over his shoulder and as he holds it in his hands, he’s suddenly struck by how heavy it feels. He realises in disbelief that his hands are shaking and that he can’t grip his shovel hard enough to use it to defend himself. Fear and panic begin to rise in his chest. This is the worst thing that could happen right now. He needs to keep himself together. Find some way to get them both out of here.

“Cry,” Pewdie calls him quietly and he feels the other man’s hand curl around the inner joint of his elbow, tugging him backwards until they’re cornered against the stack of canned drinks. The other man’s face is white with fear and he is brandishing his crowbar in front of him, its sharp end held out like the pointed tip of a sword. Cry instinctively shuffles nearer to the other man’s shoulder, tries to muster enough strength to run when the time comes. Before them, the zombies stagger closer, their milky eyes unblinking, their jaws hanging open in a snarl. This is it, he thinks, feeling his courage diminishing. This is how the end looks like.

And then somewhere in the distance comes a series of small explosions, of something crackling, popping, fizzing, hissing. Then the faint smell of something burning. The noise is loud and sudden enough that almost every undead head jerks up at the noise, momentarily distracted for a second or two. Then, the beasts utter a collective roar that’s so terrifying that a chill runs down Cry’s spine, making him shudder and Pewdie utters a strangled squeak, cowering beside him. The zombies begin to stagger away from them, trying to locate the crackling noises and Cry takes in a sharp intake of breath, stunned by what he is seeing in front of him. Just what the hell is happening?

A shadow suddenly materialises from the corner of his eye, moving swift and fast towards them. Before them, the portly male zombie had not finished turning around to join the others. Its head suddenly jerks and holds still. A second later, its whole body pitches forward and they see the sharp end of a red and black ice axe buried into the back of its skull. An unfamiliar boot plants itself on the creature’s neck and pushes hard as a pair of hands rip the axe out of its head, trailing blood and brain matter. The zombie gives a final noise before it slumps dead on the floor, a bloody hole pierced into its skull.

“Come on!” a young woman stands over the body of the zombie, clutching the red and black ice axe. Cry catches a glimpse of dark, mocha-coloured skin and a matching pair of eyes before their saviour spins around, the ends of her short black hair flicking over her shoulder, and motions for them both to follow her. “Don’t just stand there! Move your asses!”

Her command, uttered like a bark, induces Cry and Pewdie to move in a rush of adrenaline and they stumble on their feet in an attempt to catch up to her. As they run, they hear another series of popping explosions sound off from a distant aisle. A stray zombie standing in their way is cut down by a quick jab from the spike of the ice axe and the girl kicks the dead creature aside. They follow her to a stack of shelves and wait as she pushes it a little to the right, revealing a door behind it.

The room they pile into is small – it’s a back room with a large television screen showing the security footage of the zombie-filled store. They don’t have time to study the screen further because the girl ushers them deeper into the room and push them through another set of doors. They get a quick glimpse of a stock room, almost half-empty of goods and a few dead zombies lying on the ground. Eventually, they stop by a misshapen hole in the wall – someone had smashed through the brick and concrete – and that’s when the girl points to it and says, “Through here.”

They crawl through the gap and reach a bush of heavy, green foliage. Cry feels the sharp ends of the shrub tug at his clothes, lightly scratching his cheeks. When he finally bursts out of the thick greenery into open air, he gulps in deep breaths of it, feeling his dry throat itch and burn. Pewdie stumbles out after him, red-faced and panting.

They’re in some kind of back alley, surrounded by a wire fence and the wall of another redbrick building. The day is finally beginning to cool down and the edges of the orange sky is already tipped with dark blue hues. Now that there are no zombies nearby, it occurs to Cry now of the situation that they have fallen into. He tenses and edges closer to Pewdie and he eventually realises that they’re both watching the girl who had led them out of the store with a wary eye.

The girl in question meets their gazes. She looks older, in her late twenties, and she’s a few inches shorter than either of them. Despite that, she stands upright and imposing, impressive for a girl her size especially when she’s carrying a large, heavy backpack on her back. Her short black hair reminds Cry of a 60’s-style bob, albeit a little tousled from the chaos they’d escaped, framing her brown-skinned face. The nails on her hands are painted neon yellow when she lifts her ice axe and lets it rest on her shoulder. Strapped to her hip is a holster that’s holding a handgun.

“Never seen you boys around,” she says casually, eyeing them back. Her voice is high-pitched and has something of a pleasant ring to it but that doesn’t mean her words were uttered kindly. There’s a hardness in her tone, as if she, too, is wary of them. “The rest of your posse nearby?”

Cry isn’t sure if he wants to answer her or whether it’s safe to trust her even when she had been the one to save their lives. His gaze falls onto the gun in her holster and he suddenly feels an irrational dislike for the girl. He easily imagines her drawing her gun and shooting them both, robbing them of their remaining belongings before leaving them for dead. So no, no, maybe she can’t be trusted.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” she comments a moment later, raising her eyebrows at their maintained silence. “Bad thing happened to the rest of your crew then? That why you’re this gloomy?”

“No,” Cry is momentarily surprised when Pewdie is the one who answers her question. He wants to shoot the other man a warning glance but Pewdie continues to reply, “There’s no one else. This is it. This is us.”

As expected, she isn’t convinced at first. “Uh-huh. I see,” she says. “Well, I’m not that stupid, boys. Now where’s the rest of your group? And this time, I want the truth.”

“That _is_ the truth,” Cry pipes up this time, intimidated by her scoffing tone. “There isn’t anybody else. We haven’t come across anyone breathing for months!” Technically, this wasn’t entirely true. They had met two living people just yesterday and look where it got them – hungry and thirsty and desperate to try anything.

Something in Cry’s voice must have convinced her to change her mind because the girl visibly relaxes a little and folds her arms, the corner of her lip twitching upwards. “I hope to high hell that you’re really telling me the truth,” she says evenly. “‘Cos if we get ambushed on the way, I’mma make sure to pop you two off first.”

Cry bristles at the casual threat, tightening his grip on the strap of his shovel. There’s something dangerous in her cool gaze, in her half-smile. She may appear calm and relaxed right now but even he can see that she’s completely on her toes, waiting for one of them to make the wrong move.

The green foliage concealing the secret entrance into the store behind them suddenly rustles into life. Cry jumps at the noise, whipping around and backing away with Pewdie close by. The shrubbery continues to shake, the leaves swaying to and fro, and then a dark head pops out, followed by a body. A man. A living man.

“Managed to give them the slip after I turned off the store lights,” murmurs the newcomer as he straightens up, brushing the twigs from his short and coarse spiky hair. He has Asian features and a smattering of freckles across his small nose and cheeks. A hunting rifle hangs off one shoulder, the barrel glinting in the diminishing light. When he notices Cry and Pewdie’s bewildered stares being sent his way, he offers them a sheepish smile. “Thought I was one of them, huh? Crawling out and coming to get you?”

The girl behind them huffs in exasperation. “What took you so long?”

“Ran out of fire crackers,” the man replies. It’s hard to guess his age. He looks younger than his female companion but Cry has a feeling that he’s about the same age as her. “Had to find another means of distraction. So I knocked down an aisle. Made one hell of a mess. Drew them all like flies to a dead corpse. After that, it was easy to pick my way past them. Although one of them nearly caught me on the foot when I was running across the top of the shelves. Gave that motherfucker a kick in the sniffer. Boom! Up comes a plume of red. Crack goes his bones. He sort of looked like my Uncle Danny. Maybe it _was_ my Uncle Danny although I don’t remember him growing his hair long like that–”

“Alright, alright,” interrupts the girl as she rolls her eyes at her companion’s rambling while Cry and Pewdie awkwardly stand between them, looking stupidly confused. “Didn’t need to hear the details. I just want to get back before dark.”

“Hey, hey,” the guy is now looking directly at them and there’s something bright and excited in his eyes. “What you two just did in there was crazy, you know that? Crazy, but _amazing_.”

Cry finds himself taken aback by the praising words. “Did what?” he blinks before exchanging a quick, confused glance at Pewdie.

“Are you two serious?” the girl says incredulously and she walks around them to join her friend, fixing them a look of disbelief. “‘Did what’ you say? You two just walked into that shop without turning any dead head at you!”

“Now that’s what I call stealth,” comments the man, sounding impressed.

“Like real-life ninjas,” the girl adds beside him, nodding emphatically.

“Totally invisible,” chirps her male companion, waving his arms about.

“So how did you do it?” the girl asks curiously and there’s that hard edge in her voice again. It’s so subtle that Cry almost missed it. Unlike her friend’s maintained gaze of delight, her eyes are watchful, attentive, almost steely.

When Cry and Pewdie don’t answer, the guy leans his head close to the girl’s and murmurs, “They don’t talk much, do they?”

The girl gives a sigh and asks, “Okay. We’ll cut to the chase – You boys aren’t bitten or anything, are you?”

“ _No_ ,” Cry and Pewdie quickly answer in unison. Cry shuffles uncomfortably on the spot, unsettled by the sudden question. “Why-why do you say that?” he hears Pewdie add nervously.

“Oh, I don’t know,” shrugs the girl, glancing at her friend.

“Maybe you get immunity or something if you’re bitten,” the man hums. “I mean how else can you sneak through that army without alerting the troops? Watching you guys was like watching someone swim through a river of sleeping piranhas.”

‘Watching you guys...’? Immediately, Cry feels a pang of suspicion at the remark. “How did you know that?” he chances to ask at the same time when Pewdie says, “Have you been watching us this whole time?” 

“How could we not?” says the guy with a flick of his hand.

“You were on camera,” the girl pipes up beside him.

“CCTV was on.”

“We couldn’t help it.”

“We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.”

“Some pretty good stuff.”

“It was like watching a show on TV.”

“Damn. Haven’t watched one of those for a long time.”

“Feels nostalgic.”

“Oh, don’t you start.”

“How did you do it, man?”

They’re a strange pair, Cry thinks as he studies the two unlikely people before them. They’re like chirping birds, twittering one after the other and continuing each other’s sentences. They vaguely reminded him of the Lutece twins from _Bioshock: Infinite,_ minus the clever, cryptic remarks.

Again, Cry finds himself exchanging glances with Pewdie. Then he says, “Practice.”

“You boys got some nerves of steel,” this time, the girl sounds genuinely impressed. She even cracks out a smile, softening her features. Beside her, her companion beams. All four of them drift into a brief silence as a cool breeze rustles past them and the last rays of the sun cast a shaft of gold on the roof of the buildings they’re surrounded by.

“So what now?” Cry breaks their silence.

“Well, you could just go on from here,” says the girl, nudging her head towards the wire fence at one end of the alley.

“Or you could come back with us to our group,” her friend finishes enthusiastically. “I mean, we were sort of hoping you could maybe join us. Your stealth skills would definitely come in handy. I mean, not that it’s the sole reason we’re inviting you in the first place...”

“Unless you’ve already got a group to go back to and you weren’t telling me the whole truth all along,” the girl remarks. “If I find out you were lying to me, I’ll pull your tongue out.”

“It’s just us,” Cry answers exasperatedly. “What the hell do we have to do to convince you that it’s only been the two of us? There’s no one else.”

“Great,” says the man, grinning. “So you’ll come with us?”

Cry is just about to tell them that they’ll have to think about it first when Pewdie answers, “Yeah, okay.” Immediately, he rounds on the other man and stares at him in disbelief. What on earth was Pewdie thinking, just saying “yes” to this pair of strangers just like that as if that is already their final decision? This is ridiculous. This is unfair. Cry had always been able to trust his own judgement but right now he feels left out, having had someone else decide his own fate. Doesn’t he get a say to all this?

Despite his exhaustion, Cry feels the rage begin to build up inside him again, pounding along with the pulsating pain in his head. Pewdie had been getting on his nerves since the argument they had last night and the indifference he’d shown to Cry this whole day. This time though, the other man had gone too far. It’s one thing to have Pewdie decide where they had to go in the beginning of the day but important decisions like this needed complete consent from the both of them. Who the fuck gave Pewdie the right to decide everything?

Cry roughly tugs Pewdie’s arm and grits out, “We need to talk.” And then, out of politeness to the two strangers, he asks them, “Can we talk first?” although his voice comes out harsh anyway. He turns around, not bothering to wait for their approval.

“What’s the matter?” Pewdie asks when Cry draws him away from the duo to the brick wall on the other side of the alley. Cry sends him a glare, suddenly furious that the other man is acting oblivious like this. How can he not notice what he had done?

“ _You_ ,” Cry growls. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What am _I_ doing?” Pewdie frowns at the note of accusation in his voice. “Doing the most obvious thing. We take up their offer.”

“No, no. _You’re_ taking up their offer,” Cry corrects. “There is no ‘we’ here. You decided this on your own.”

Something changes in Pewdie’s face and he looks almost apologetic, “I thought we were on the same page so I assumed–”

“Well, you assumed _wrong_ ,” Cry snaps. “We’re supposed to be in this together. _We_ decide what we want to do and whether we both agree to it. You don’t go around–”

“Fine, fine. So what do _you_ suggest?” Pewdie cuts into his words impatiently. Cry can see that the other man is trying to keep down his own temper. His face is flushing red from the effort.

“We don’t go,” says Cry impulsively and without thinking.

“Why?” comes Pewdie’s demand.

Why? Cry struggles to think up the reasons because he realises he only said it because he felt as if he needed to disagree with the other man. “Why?” he says, casting a furtive glance over his shoulder where the other pair are still standing there, waiting patiently for them. “I don’t trust those two.”

“You don’t have to trust them. Hell, _I_ don’t even trust them,” Pewdie murmurs, trying to sound reasonable. “But you can’t just say ‘no’ based on that. We both know that’s a little stupid.”

“Well, we don’t need their help,” Cry supplies instead. “We’re fine on our own.”

“How can we be fin– are you crazy?” Pewdie hisses, frowning. “We don’t have anything on us right now. Nothing at all. We’re getting slower too, I’m sure you noticed that. We need help and these people are offering it to us. They’re not here to kill us. If they were, they would have left us to die in there. We don’t have a lot of choices right now.”

“Yes, we do,” God, Cry really hates that tone of defeat in Pewdie’s voice. It’s the same one he used with that fire hydrant incident, as if he doesn’t see much hope in anything that Cry wants to do. “We can always walk away. We already found something to drink in there, in that shop. It’s _something_ at least. If we try again, we might be able to find food too. We can start over. And we’ve got a plan, remember? We’ve got to go to that radio tower. Why do we need to change that?”

“How are we even going to make it there at this rate?” Pewdie mutters. “Do you even think we can do that?”

“If you’re implying that we can’t make it because we’ve got no food and drink, we do have this shop,” Cry counters, nudging his head at the building in question.

“So you’re saying we go through that hell once again?” Pewdie says, raising his eyebrows in disbelief.

“We know another way in,” Cry replies, referring to the green foliage they emerged from.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Pewdie says, shaking his head. “You think we can sneak in there again? Remember what happened that time? You couldn’t even pick up a can. That already tells us something. That we can’t go on like this. We’re tired. These people have got food, shelter, security, safety. Exactly what we need right now. We don’t even have to stay long if that’s what you’re worried about. We just need a break from this.”

But Cry doesn’t want to agree. He’s not even sure why he’s rejecting whatever Pewdie is saying. He’s just mad that the other man had made the decision for them first, as if Cry’s own opinions on the matter did not count. He’s mad because he had been reminded that he can’t even grip a single can of drink in his hands and that they blew their chance back in the store. He’s mad because he’s so fucking tired and hungry and thirsty and that these two gun-wielding strangers have no right to be friendly with them unless it is part of some ploy to lead them into a trap. So, no. Cry does not want to go with them no matter how desperate they are.

Ignoring Pewdie who is waiting for his answer, Cry turns and calls over to the two people by the wire fence, “Sorry. Thanks for the offer but we’ll be fine on our own.”

“Wait, _no_. We haven’t decided on anything yet. Give us a minute,” Pewdie barks out and pulls Cry back into their huddle. “What are you _doing_?” he hisses angrily.

“What’s it look like?” Cry mutters back. “We’re not going with them. We have a plan. We’re _going_ to that tower.”

“For fuck’s sake, we _are_ going to that tower but _not_ right now,” Pewdie huffs out in frustration. “Not until we get some food and rest. Come on, you’re not thinking right!”

“We’ll be fine on our _own_ ,” Cry emphasizes firmly through gritted teeth.

“Are you fucking kid– god, no, no, _no._ We are _not_ doing this again, Cry. We are _not_ ,” Pewdie says. The voice he’s struggling to keep quiet is shaking in anger. He looks extremely pissed at him and that’s fine with Cry, who feels just as pissed off at everything as the former is. “You’re not making any sense,” Pewdie points out. “I don’t understand why you’re so against this. Or why you’re being like this.”

“I am making perfect sense and you’re being ridiculous,” Cry shoots back and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about or whatever it is they’re fighting over – are they arguing over who is _right_ here or are they deciding on what to do? Fuck, he doesn’t really remember. That is the thing about heated arguments. Like a ship being blown by uncontrollable winds, they tend to go off course.

“I told you this before,” Cry settles with this instead. “Last night, I was being deadly serious about the loss of our supplies. About how it’s much more important than whatever it is that you said. Remember that? Well, this is _exactly_ why I was right all along. You realised that too, yes? You don’t want to admit that I was right. That’s obviously why you’re mad at me. And why am I being like this, you ask? Well, if you hadn’t been in such a fucking mood all day, I wouldn’t be as riled up like I am now,” he finishes.

At this, Pewdie sends him a sharp look, “You want to bring this up now? Don’t be stupid. This isn’t even the time for that.”

“Maybe this _is_ the perfect time for that,” Cry snaps and he doesn’t care if anyone else is listening in. He doesn’t care that there are zombies still roaming this town and that he’s kicking up a ruckus right now. He doesn’t care that his stomach is aching and his throat is burning and that his muscles hurt. He doesn’t care about anything at the moment. All he wants right now is to win this argument and Cry is willing to keep on going until Pewdie gives up and gives in.

Something in Cry’s determined stare makes Pewdie’s expression change from disbelief to realisation. A second later, it quickly turns into absolute incredulity, as if he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing in front of him. “God- _dammit_ , Cry,” Pewdie breathes, stretching out the words. His stare is hard as he shakes his head slowly, almost sadly at him, “You’re a selfish bastard, you know that?”

At once, anger flares up in Cry’s chest at the insult and he opens his mouth to deliver a fiery comeback when Pewdie speaks again.

“You don’t even notice, do you?” he says quietly and his words are bitter and sharp, full of criticism. “That when you’re feeling cranky, everything is about you. You think about yourself. Your own feelings. You don’t notice or consider anyone else’s. Sometimes you don’t even care. You focus on one thing too much and you don’t see anything else. You just keep going. It’s exhausting sometimes, you know that? You know how exhausting it is for me? That I can’t do my own thing without making you upset? That being around you sometimes is like being around a fucking zombie? One wrong move and you get bitten?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Cry says defensively, alarmed by what he is hearing. Why is this suddenly about him, Cry? Weren’t they talking about how Pewdie is the one who’s cranky and cold here? “Are you trying to say that it’s _my_ fault that you’re acting like a prick like this?”

Something flashes dangerously in Pewdie’s eyes. “You want to know why it’s probably _your_ fault?” he says coldly, carefully, and for the first time, Cry recognises something cruel in his voice. “We could have avoided all of this if you’d just stopped being such a touchy bitch. If you’d just tell me why the hell you’re making such a big deal about shutting out your old life, why you freak out whenever it involves something as important and precious as your own family! Just what the hell is going on in that freaky head of yours, man? Don’t you even _think_ about them? Your own _family_ , Cry! How can you be so scared of something so much that you shut everything out and then you had to go and lose our fucking _car_? If we still had it, we’d be at a safe zone by now instead of going through all this unnecessary shit. So maybe you _are_ right, Cry. Maybe it _is_ your fucking fault all along.”

The words are like thunder, striking him like a violent slap in the face, and Cry actually reels back from the verbal blow. He’s stunned. Speechless. Stupefied. Shocked. And he stares at Pewdie, unable to believe what the latter had just said to him, unable to believe that he had brought up something unspeakable between them again, had brought this up after they had already made amends about it. How...? How could Pewdie take back the assurance that he doesn’t blame Cry for the loss of their car and throw it back at his face? Why would he _do_ that? Why does this feel so, so awful? Why does this hurt Cry so much?

Because this is _Pewdie_ , Cry realises with a start. Pewdie is the _last_ person whom he expects will hurt him.

And god, he wants to get _angry_ at Pewdie for knowing what it is that can hurt him, for purposely striking him where it hurts so he can put him down. Cry wants to retaliate, wants to scream at his face and punch him in the gut for what he has done but he can’t. Instead of the rage which he expects, there is only numbness brought on by the shock at this act of betrayal. He can only stare back, feeling small and helpless and hurt all over.

There is a tense silence between them for a few seconds before Pewdie exhales heavily and says in a calmer voice, “I want to go with them, Cry. I’m not going to change my mind. I’m going with them whether you like it or not.”

And Cry still doesn’t want to go and he won’t. Not now. Not after what Pewdie had done. When Pewdie turns to the side, looking as if he is about to join the waiting pair by the wire fence, Cry thinks for a second that he is going to leave him here to wallow in his hurt. He thinks that this is where it ends between them. That this is the moment where Pewdie has had enough of him and decides to leave him for good.

But Pewdie stops because he has not yet finished speaking. “Don’t you think about running away just because I’m going with them,” he says sharply and his eyes are serious and fierce with determination. “I don’t care if I have to knock you out and drag you along myself. There is no way I’m going to leave you on your own. You’re coming with me, end of story.”

 _What?_ Cry wants to say but the word is stuck in his throat. He hadn’t expected this at all and now, he suddenly recognises the look in Pewdie’s eyes. It is the same one that he gave him when Cry was trapped in the wrecked remains of their car. He finds himself flabbergasted by that determined gaze. He does not know what to feel about it at first but it warms his heart nonetheless. He feels it seep inside him, chase the numbness away and eventually, he finds himself conceding defeat. Because how can Cry say no to that? How can he say no to someone who has told him for the second time that he will not leave him?

In the end, he gives Pewdie the tiniest of reluctant nods, feeling conflicted emotions for the other man, and doesn’t fight back when Pewdie takes a firm hold of his arm, as if the other man is expecting him to make a run for it. He lets Pewdie lead him back to the two strangers who in turn shuffle uncomfortably by the wire fence, looking like they hadn’t been listening in on the commotion between Pewdie and himself. The male of the pair gives them a small smile and says, “Well?”

“We’ll come with you,” Pewdie answers when Cry can’t get himself to answer after a few seconds. “Is your place far from here?”

“More or less,” says the girl with a shrug. “Depending on the route. If the path’s clear, we can get there in ten minutes.”

“Alright,” Pewdie says and when the pair turn towards the fence, he adds, “Wait a minute. Before we go, have you got any water?”

“Yeah, of course we do,” the man grins and begins to rummage in his backpack, producing a water bottle and hands it over to Pewdie. “Knock yourself out.”

“Thanks,” Pewdie says gratefully and unscrews the cap. He then presses the open bottle into Cry’s hands, much to the latter’s utter astonishment. Why isn’t Pewdie taking a sip? Why is he giving him, Cry, the water first?

“Try not to drop it,” Pewdie tells him. His face is absent of its anger and had gone back to looking impassive once more. “Don’t drink it all in one go. You might end up throwing up. You should pause in between mouthfuls.”

The taste of water is incredible in Cry’s mouth. He feels it soothing his dry throat, go down his gullet to settle in the empty pit of his stomach. He has never tasted anything so delicious and refreshing in his life. He makes sure to follow Pewdie’s advice about pausing in between mouthfuls and stops when he finishes half of the bottle. He’s tempted to use some of the water to cool his dry skin and his pounding headache but he wants to leave the rest to Pewdie, who needs it as much he does. Cry silently hands the bottle to the other man and watches as the latter gulps down the rest of the water, pausing in between mouthfuls just as he had done previously.

“Ready?” says the girl with another half-smile and gets nods of affirmation from the both of them. She then turns and presses her hands on the wire fence and a square section of it falls back, revealing an opening for them to slip through.

“Stay close to me,” the girl advises once all four of them make it to the other side of the fence and on to a new street. Overhead, night is descending upon them and the last remnants of light still hang in the darkening sky, waiting for its moment to fade into blackness. “Don’t get lost in the dark now,” she adds. “We move when it’s safe.” She then looks at her companion, “Lead the way, D.”

“On it,” comes the affirmation. The remaining three watch as the guy scurries forward, heading towards the shattered remains of a fire escape ladder. Only half of the structure remains hanging in mid-air, leading up to the first level platform that hovers over ten feet above the ground. Even Cry can see that the steps would break if any pressure is applied to it. Furthermore, even if a jump is attempted, the platform itself is still far too high to reach. So how is that dude going to–?

He hears Pewdie make a noise of surprise when they watch the man run towards the brick wall, leaping into the air. One foot makes contact with the vertical surface and pushes, propelling the rest of his body upwards. His arms shoot out and grab hold of the edge of the fire escape platform before he swings himself onto the structure. Speechless with amazement, Cry and Pewdie watch as he flies up the stairs, heading to the top floor. One more leap off the railings of the platform, he reaches the rooftop and disappears over the ledge. All of this happens in under one minute.

“Delta’s been doing that since he was in high school,” the girl explains in amusement, noticing Cry and Pewdie’s twin expressions of amazement. “He’s our very own Asian Spiderman. Don’t call him that though. He doesn’t like it. Still, the skill’s useful when you’re trying to avoid the dead.”

About a second later, they spot a beam of light flashing twice from the rooftop. A signal.

“The path is clear for now,” the girl translates the message and motions for them to follow her down the street. She then offers them a half-smile from over her shoulder, “The name’s Vegas. Try not to get us killed on the way, alright?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [CRY WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. PEWDS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE.]
> 
> So let's talk about this chapter.
> 
> I think it's about time Pewds gives Cry the cold shoulder when he's angry or irritated with him. So far, Cry has been doing much of the sulking around and Pewds sort of suffers for it. It's time for a change for once. Cry needs to realise the extent of Pewdie's moodmaker abilities and that Pewds isn't just the guy who can make you laugh but he is also the guy who can make you feel down. He needs to realise that Pewds has feelings too, which is something that Cry hasn't quite grasped yet.
> 
> However, despite whatever grudge they have for each other, notice that they're still working rather nicely together. The teamwork is still there. So not all is lost (ohreally?).
> 
> I always planned on Pewds and Cry losing their supplies, just as they had done with the car. I wanted to slowly strip them of their comforts and force them to change how they do things. Thus, losing their car and supplies are both turning points in the journey. With no food and drink available and their moods becoming worse, Pewds and Cry become desperate enough to try anything. This is also the chapter where Pewdie sort of shines. While Cry isn't faring too well, we see Pewdie making the more rational choices for their tag-team - suggesting they go to the radio tower, that they try raiding the grocery store, etc. Finally, Pewdie makes the grand decision of joining the two survivors, Delta and Vegas, back at their safe house because as he has said, "...we can't go on like this... these people have got food, shelter, security, safety. Exactly what we need right now."
> 
> It isn't just this that shows us something different about Pewds after their dispute last night. For once, he's done something he had avoided for a while: he's finally confronted Cry. But at the same time, he's gone too far. He has hurt Cry and blames him for everything that has happened to them, even when he told him earlier on that it wasn't Cry's fault in the first place. So really, who's in the right/wrong here anyway?
> 
> On another note, we finally meet some more survivors, much more friendlier ones too. I had difficulty writing them but I hoped I made them likeable enough. Fun fact: my fellow writer and I created Delta with the skill that he can do Parkour so I found it extremely amusing when Pewds played the game demo 'Dying Light' which had Parkour and zombies in it about a few months after Delta's character creation.
> 
> Anyway, much appreciation for the positive feedback from last chapter and if you enjoyed romping through this horrible monster, do drop a Kudos/Comment and tell me what you liked about it. This has been an intense chapter. I had fun and difficulty writing it. I hope you'll continue to stick around for the next one?


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's to reaching 100 kudos! Oh wow, wow, WOW. Oh man. Thank you for reading and enjoying this, guys. Thank you so, so much.
> 
> And now, without further adieu -
> 
> (It's time to meet more characters, yes?)

**13.**

He shouldn’t have done it. He knows he shouldn’t have done it.

Pewdie has been tolerant of Cry so far. After everything they’ve gone through – the woods, the heartfelt talk in the safe house, the incidents in the abandoned suburban house and the church – he is all too aware of the progress of their relationship, of how they had reached a certain level of understanding between themselves. Despite that, the experience with the two bandits had discomposed Cry to the point in which he and Pewdie are no longer as synchronised in thought as the latter once believed. Thus, their subsequent argument had left them on shaky ground once again.

This day had been a difficult one for the both of them. Pewdie already knows that his stamina isn’t as strong as Cry’s. That’s why he had strived to keep himself going without too much complaint, to keep up with Cry’s pace as much as he can. The lack of food and water had already been a struggle and creeping through a horde of zombies without attracting their attention had been another. Even when his grudge against Cry for last night’s dispute still simmers within him, fuelling his increasing frustration at their bleak situation, he’s careful to keep it from rearing its ugly head. He knows that it isn’t the time for any of that, especially when they’re wandering through active zombie territory. Besides, Cry wouldn’t approve of it if he suddenly decides to bring it up.

But it is the fact that Cry, _himself_ , who had been the one wanting to pursue this when they’re in the middle of some critical decision-making which becomes the factor that pushes him to his limit. It is the fact that Cry is unable to provide him with an explanation as to why they shouldn’t join their saviours at their safe house is what had driven him to say all those things. Whether it is because of last night’s trauma or their hunger, thirst and exhaustion of the day, Pewdie had noticed that Cry’s mind had been affected to the point in which he seems unable to think clearly anymore. His grand accusation of blaming him, Pewdie, for his irritable state had been unexpected, not to mention irrelevant to their situation at hand. The mad determination in Cry’s eyes had told Pewdie everything he needed to know – that Cry isn’t going to reason with him at all, that he doesn’t care about anything right now. That all he wants is to win because he couldn’t do it the night before.

When Cry had attacked the fire hydrant in a desperate attempt to get water, Pewdie had let this mistake slide. But when Cry had asked him whether this misunderstanding between them had been his fault, Pewdie had _snapped_.

It first came out in a trickle of exasperated disbelief. A curse under his breath. All before an uncontrollable flood of words then burst out of him. Cold, harsh, cruel words which had hit Cry in all the right places. He remembers expressing his disapproval for Cry’s single-mindedness. Remembers spitting out things he shouldn’t have said. About the car crash. About Cry’s family. About the fact that Cry is to blame, that it _had_ been Cry’s fault all along.

And the worst thing about it apart from the shock and the hurt that was plainly written on Cry’s face had been Pewdie’s own reaction. It isn’t the feeling of regret that immediately comes to him after shooting Cry down which is the worst thing. It is the soaring feeling of devilish satisfaction when he sees that he had successfully gotten through to Cry which becomes it.

He only realises all of this when he and Cry are following their two saviours along a puzzling, complicated route that takes them through back alleys and a few main streets, up fire escape staircases and through buildings. He realises that despite the fact that they are walking side by side, an invisible yawning gap exists between them now. He can feel its tension in the air, heavy and unsettling like buzzing electricity. He also recognises the way Cry’s eyes remain locked before him, how he never once looked at Pewdie as they trail behind Vegas, the female half of the survivor pair.

“...How are you two holding up?” Vegas suddenly asks at one point in their journey and her voice shatters Pewdie’s deep train of thought. Roused out of his trance, he lifts his head and takes in his surroundings, realises that they had paused by an overturned truck which had collided head-on into a shop. Despite it being a dark and cool night with a half-moon hovering in the sky, Pewdie can still feel the remaining heat of the day radiating from the tarmac roads and concrete streets onto his face.

He realises after a few seconds that Vegas is waiting for an answer so he gives her a weak nod, feeling too tired to speak. Beside him, Cry leans his head against the side of the truck, shutting and resting his eyes. He understands the other man’s actions. Throughout the journey, Pewdie finds that trying to keep up with the strangers’ pace had been difficult. Even Cry had slowed down tremendously. Weak with exhaustion, they’re barely holding themselves up. Pewdie notices that he’s taken to dragging his feet to move while Cry had been seen blinking frequently, rubbing his eyes to keep himself awake.

Vegas’s companion, Delta, suddenly drops onto the ground beside her, nimble and silent like a shadow. Unlike his companion, Delta doesn’t travel alongside them on the ground but seems to prefer scaling up walls or leaping across rooftops. Pewdie occasionally catches glimpses of flashing lights illuminating the darkness from somewhere up high to inform the rest of them that the coast is clear. He’s done an astonishingly good job so far because they haven’t come across any zombies on their journey.

Naturally, his sudden appearance out of nowhere startles Pewdie, making him take a reflexive step back and bump into a worn-out Cry. He thinks he feels the other man recoil sharply at the contact.

“We’re nearly there,” reassures Delta. They can barely distinguish his features in the dim light of Vegas’s clip-on flashlight that’s fastened to one of the straps of her large backpack. “Do you want us to stop and rest for a bit?” he asks, studying them.

It’s a considerate offer on their part but Pewdie knows Cry doesn’t like stopping to rest especially when they’re already so close to their intended destination. So he manages to croak out, “We can go on for a little bit more.”

“You sure?” Vegas says and she doesn’t sound convinced by the answer.

“You don’t look so hot,” Delta adds. Judging from the concerned way they are looking at them like that, Pewdie and Cry must be looking worst off than they first thought despite having consumed another bottle of water and some cereal bars from the pair earlier on.

When Pewdie nods, he sees Vegas’s eyebrows rise. “Nerves of steel _and_ everlasting stamina? You boys are really something,” she murmurs, sounding impressed.

‘Everlasting stamina’? Pewdie wants to laugh aloud and deny this but he is too tired to correct her on that assumption. He and Cry are only holding up for this long because they don’t want to be left behind.

After some time, their small group of four eventually pass the scorched remains of a burned building and arrive at what looks like a fortress before them. A large compound comprising of two separate buildings have been surrounded by a solid barrier made up of a combination of wooden boards, concrete slabs, zinc slats, broken pieces of furniture hastily hammered together and rolls of tangled barbed wire.

“Here we are,” says Vegas with a sigh of relief.

“Home sweet home,” adds Delta when he drops back to the ground from who-knows-where and gestures towards the rather menacing wall.

“Whoa,” Pewdie blinks, momentarily forgetting his fatigue when he notices that there are dead zombie bodies caught in some of that barbed wire. “I love what you’ve done with the place. You should give me the name of your decorator.”

“Ha-ha. Well, it’s just your standard stronghold. You know, to keep the dead and the living out,” Delta says sheepishly but he seems secretly pleased by Pewdie’s comment. “We’ve had a few break-ins before but we managed to build a sturdier wall after that.”

“Not the time for chitchat yet, D. Better let us in,” Vegas scolds her companion lightly as she casts a wary look over her shoulder at the darkness behind them.

They follow Delta to the side of the wall and watch the man expertly leap his way across the jumble of concrete, metal and wire before hopping onto the body of a dead zombie to use as a stepping stone. Then, after a few more skips across some protruding concrete slabs and another jump, he crawls forward and suddenly disappears into the wall.

“Where did he go?” Cry breathes out in astonishment.

“There’s actually a hole hidden somewhere in there,” Vegas explains, pointing vaguely at where Delta had disappeared. “This is one of the entrances into the place. Delta likes to use this way. The others prefer another.”

Pewdie is about to ask her exactly how many “others” there are in her group before they hear an audible click and a rectangular section of the wall – still bolted with wood, concrete and metal –swings open, revealing a grinning Delta on the other side. A hidden door.

“All this used to be a simple wire fence,” Delta explains as they walk through the entrance and step into the compound. “We all helped to modify it. Added a few more materials. Made it last longer. Covered up the obvious ways to get in.”

“What is this place?” Pewdie asks once Delta closes the door behind them and bolts it shut. He is saved from a direct answer when he hears Cry’s bewildered murmur of, “No way...” and turns to see what the other is staring at.

It’s a fire station. A wide, redbrick building with an open garage bay, revealing only one fire engine parked inside. Although the garage lies in darkness, the interior lights in the rest of the building are switched on, seeping through the cracks of the wooden boards which cover all the windows. Like the Asian grocery store, some of the letters of the fire station’s name are missing except for a large number ‘6’ which is set above it. Graffiti’d on the wall of the building, just above the number ‘6’, is a hand-painted inscription scribbled in white which reads: “KEEP OUT OR GET SHOT”. Another edifice looms behind this main one – a tall, tower-like structure with visible staircases and windows with no glass panels. This must be the fire drill training tower, Pewdie realises. Wow, I never expected that a place like this could become a stronghold in a zombie apocalypse before.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Delta says excitedly, motioning towards the dark garage bay and the fire engine. “Want me to give you guys a tour as well? There’s a fireman’s pole and everything. A _real_ fireman’s pole. Damn, you’ve got to try going down one of those–”

“Uh-uh,” interrupts Vegas, reaching out to grab her companion by his backpack. “They need to see Speedy first. We gotta check if they’re clean.”

‘ _Clean’_? Pewdie echoes the word in his head in alarm. He suddenly pictures white coats, operation tables and protection suits. Thinks about scalpels and needles and straps. Shudders at the thought of horrified looks and possible confinement. Or perhaps something even worse.

“W-Wait, wait, wait,” it is Cry who stammers their mutual uneasiness aloud as he takes a wary step back from the pair. “What do you mean by ‘clean’? We–We’re not bitten. Or sick. Or anything. We’re _fine_. We don’t need to be checked. We just need some food and rest.”

Vegas just raises her eyebrows at his insistent tone. “Well hey, it’s standard procedure here,” she replies in a matter-of-factly tone and with an emphatic sway of her head. “It’s also because of safety reasons. Anybody who goes out needs to be checked when they come back. If it makes you feel any better, we’re joining you boys too.”

“Then what happens in this place if they find out that you _are_ bitten?” Cry asks her straightforwardly. There’s a hard edge in his voice, making him sound almost confrontational, challenging, and Pewdie wants to scold him for it. That isn’t the right way to speak to a girl, he wants to tell him. Especially the one who had saved their lives.

At this, Vegas turns her full gaze on Cry. Despite it being cool and collected, her voice takes on a steely nature. “They _don’t_ find out,” she says slowly. “Because when _we_ find out first, we don’t come back here at all. Now, does that answer your question?”

Does that mean...? Pewdie gulps at the implication of those words. He wonders if that may be the case too if he ends up getting bitten and has to kill himself just so he can keep himself from putting Cry in danger. He doesn’t want to think about it at this point. In fact, he doesn’t want to think about it at all even though it may well happen to him at any time.

When Cry doesn’t respond to Vegas’s answer, she nudges her head to a main door of the building and says in a lighter tone, “Why don’t we just get this thing over and done with so we can all get some rest, eh? Y’all look pretty beat up.”

“‘Pooped’ is a better word,” Delta mumbles offhandedly.

“You just _like_ using that word,” Vegas quips playfully, elbowing her companion lightly in the ribs. “Honestly, boys are so gross sometimes.”

“I didn’t mean that kind of ‘poop’. I meant the tired kind of ‘pooped’,” Delta corrects her and then he and Vegas are studying them again with very similar expressions of concern. Pewdie shuffles uncomfortably under their scrutinising stares and glances at Cry, who looks worse for wear with his head down and his eyes half-open behind his glasses.

Vegas lets out a sigh, “Let’s just go in.”

When she turns back to open the front door, Pewdie is surprised when Cry speaks again and there’s a note of uncertainty in his tired voice, “Just– hold on a second. Is this... is this even okay? Us coming _in_ here? Us coming here at _all_?”

It’s such an unexpected question but one which should indeed be addressed and Pewdie finds, to his astonishment, that he isn’t the only one taken aback by it. Both Vegas and Delta are staring at Cry with expressions of surprise.

“We invited you,” says Delta after a while. “Of course it should be okay.”

“Unless you’ve been planning to trick us all along,” says Vegas, narrowing her eyes. “And you know. You only wanted to follow us home so you could find some way to steal some freebies.”

“In that case, we’ll probably have to kill you,” Delta finishes with a sigh and a shrug. “And that’ll be a damn shame too. I was starting to like you guys.”

Despite the casually delivered threat, Pewdie finds himself stepping back from the pair, sidling closer to Cry, his hand unconsciously reaching for the other. He begins to understand Cry’s worry about this situation. Right now, they are about to walk into unknown territory and although they may be safe from zombies now, they don’t know what the state of this place is, how the rest of Delta and Vegas’s group members will react once they find two newcomers in their domain. What if they are not as welcoming as these two? What then? Will they protest at their being here? Will they incarcerate them? Will they try to kill him and Cry?

Maybe Pewdie should have thought this through. Maybe Cry is right and going with them had been a mistake.

“Damn, boy. Chill out,” Vegas says suddenly, bringing up her palms in a reassuring gesture. She must have recognised the alarm in their faces and is trying to make light of their situation by breaking into a smile. “Hey, hey. Don’t go looking like that. Delta here, he won’t kill you. He’ll probably just break a couple of your bones. He’s not so handy with that rifle of his.” Despite the amusement in her tone, her light-heartedly spoken words fail to relieve his and Cry’s anxiety.

Delta shoots his companion a pouting frown. “But it’s the only thing I’m comfortable shooting with,” he mumbles sheepishly, referring to his hunting rifle. He then casts a kind look over at Pewdie and Cry, “Don’t worry. She’s just joking. Nobody in the group is going to kill anybody. We’re not that bad of a bunch. We’re pretty cool. You just got to go and talk to Doc first. If he’s okay with you, then we’re okay with you.”

Doc? Could this mysterious Doc be their leader then? He sounds important, absolute, intimidating. Perhaps his word is Law to the rest of his group? What happens if he doesn’t like what he sees?

“And if he’s not... okay with us?” Pewdie brings this uncertainty up. He finds himself waiting for the subsequent reply with bated breath.

“Ah, who knows?” huffs Delta sheepishly, which isn’t really a comforting answer.

Before either of them can respond to this, the doorknob suddenly rattles and turns and the whole door swings open outwards. Instantly, a shaft of white light washes over them and Pewdie squints against it, trying to shield his eyes from the brightness after spending too much time in the dark outside. There is a young girl standing behind the door, her short brown hair hanging down in scruffy waves. Her eyes, almost hidden behind her too-long fringe, briefly rest on her two much taller team mates before flicking towards him and Cry. Pewdie stares down at her in surprise and disbelief. He hasn’t seen anyone this young in such a long time. The girl doesn’t look any older than fourteen years old at least.

“Tesla,” Delta greets with a smile. “We can explain.”

“If you want to talk,” says the girl, her voice sounding young and impatient. There are a pair of earphones wedged in her ears, their wires trailing down to a dirty iPod tucked in the pocket of her jeans. “Why don’t you just do that inside? Where you probably have a better chance at not being overheard?”

Although it is obvious that she is addressing her companions, her eyes remain locked on him and Cry. Pewdie can’t seem to read her facial expression, can’t decide on whether she is casting them a look of curiosity or suspicion. He thinks it’s because there is something strange about her face, as if some of her features are out of place like they are not her own. As he studies her further, he finds that he can’t really explain it at all. He doesn’t even know why he has pointed this out in the first place either.

“You’re right. We shouldn’t hang around like this,” Vegas replies to the young girl’s remark and casts Delta a wide-eyed, knowing look before she ushers them all through the door. Pewdie and Cry find themselves standing in a long, narrow hallway decked on either side with similar plain doors. White fluorescent lights line the ceiling above them. There’s a quiet hum coming from the vents and Pewdie stands under one for a moment, enjoying the blast of cool air hitting his tired, weary form.

“Is Speedy in the infirmary? Or is he trying to beat ‘Betta at darts again?” Vegas asks, shrugging off her large backpack so that she can stretch her muscles. The handgun tucked into her holster gleams under the ceiling lights.

“What do you think? He’s back at the infirmary, nursing his wounds,” answers the young girl, Tesla. “You missed the best bits. But then again, it’s nothing we all haven’t seen before.”

There is a pause before Tesla adds, “Doc is in the library as usual. If you want him, that is.” Her gaze rests on him and Cry for a moment and once again, Pewdie can’t shake off the feeling that there is something odd about her face. After she turns away, they watch as Tesla makes her way down the hallway and disappears around a corner while murmuring something under her breath. Maybe she’s singing along to whatever song is playing on her music player, Pewdie assumes.

“Exactly how many people are there in this group?” Cry chances to ask. He seems as bewildered as Pewdie is at their encounter with Tesla and how she had barely acknowledged their arrival.

“We’re not such a big group. We’re pretty small,” Vegas answers him. “Including you two, we’re nine altogether.”

To him, seven people in a group is already considered a large number but if Vegas refers to her team as being “pretty small”, then that just means that there are other survivor groups out there which must exceed ten people. Pewdie remembers one of the bandits who had ambushed Cry last night mention that they had “families to feed”. Are these other groups scattered about the town, hidden in plain sight just like this fire station?

“Infirmary is this way,” Delta says, motioning them down the hallway. As they begin to walk, Pewdie notices that the building is quiet and only the hum of the air vents and the soft scraping of their feet break the complete silence. He passes the almost identical doors and reads off the dusty plaque bolted on the wood: _Lecture room 3, Lecture room 4, Lounge,_ etc. There are also a number of framed photographs of the firefighters who used to reside in the compound hanging on the walls of the hallway. Pewdie catches a glimpse of a number of serious and smiling faces and wonders what happened to them all.

They finally reach one door at the end of the hall before the path curves around a corner. Vegas doesn’t bother to knock and instead, lets herself in.

“–esus!” cries a deep, booming male voice from inside the room. “Oh, _you_ two? You scared the hell out of me. What did I tell you about knockin’ before enterin’?”

For an infirmary, it is unimpressively plain. In fact, Pewdie doubts it to be an infirmary anyway. It seemed to be just a plain old office. There are filing cabinets and a desk with a computer, framed certificates hanging on the wall and a shelf full of trophies and manuals. A pair of plastic chairs are stacked near a cabinet piled with dusty, printed documents.

“We’re back,” Vegas announces with a sneer and a dramatic swing of her arm and Delta pushes past her, shrugging his bulky backpack and says, “Good news. Ramen is back on tonight.”

“Oh, _yes_. Thank the gods of Asia for making instant food,” says the voice in the room and something rises from the swivel chair to come and greet them. Pewdie gives a start at the sudden manifestation because he hadn’t realised there was someone behind the desk all along. The man isn’t very tall though, only about a few centimetres higher than Pewdie, but his thick-set build and tangle of wild, curly dark hair covering his head makes him all the more imposing. Even his face is partly hidden by a pair of thick eyebrows and a bushy goatee. Despite all that, the pair of blue eyes which are peeking out of all that hair are surprisingly warm. An old and shabby fireman’s jacket, blackened by fire overtime, covers his large build and is worn over a plain, faded T-shirt.

“‘Betta made me wear it,” the man attempts to explain, pulling at the scorched hem of the jacket. “It’s because I lost at darts again.”

“That’s your own fault,” Delta says with a laugh and Vegas follows this with, “When are you ever going to learn?”

“I know I’m getting better,” comes the man’s response with a shake of his shaggy head. “I’ll get her someday.”

“Speedy here is our resident doctor,” Vegas announces to Pewdie and Cry, who linger behind them by the door almost timidly. Pewdie senses Cry shrink back a little and thinks that he, too, feels somewhat intimidated by the man’s appearance.

“I am not ‘Speedy’ nor am I a doctor, V,” the man complains, although he says it half-jokingly. His deep, booming voice is clear and impressive. “My name is Speed. Patrick James Speed. Also, I’m just a nurse. Come on, give a dude a break, you know? Stop calling me Speedy. That’s not even a proper name... And who are you talking to–?” His attention is perked when he spots Pewdie and Cry standing behind his friends and his small blue eyes blink in surprise under his thick eyebrows.

“Oh,” says Speed to Vegas and Delta, faintly motioning towards Pewdie and Cry with a hand. “So... locals? Or some tourists that you two decide to invite over for homestay?”

‘Tourists’? Pewdie thinks with a frown, uncertain of what to feel about the label.

“That second one,” Delta answers, ushering the newcomers forward. “So, Speed, come and meet... uh...” The smile on his face suddenly drops and his eyes widen in realisation, “ _Oh_.”

At that moment, it occurs to all five of them that no one had bothered to ask for Pewdie and Cry’s names even though two of that party had been travelling with them for the past half hour. An embarrassed silence then falls onto the group. Delta and Vegas look ashamed to have realised it, Speed appears bewildered that his friends could forget something as simple as that, while Pewdie and Cry stare awkwardly back, shocked that they, too, had forgotten to introduce themselves to their saviours earlier on.

In the end, it is Cry who breaks this uneasy silence. “Call me Cry,” he says curtly. “This is Pewdie.”

There is a pause before Vegas says, “...Cry?” at the same time as Delta, who utters out, “...Pew-Dee?”

“So you really _do_ call yourselves that?” Vegas says afterwards.

“Um...” Cry seems confused at her tone for a second. “Yes, of course.”

This time, the silence following that is one of surprise. Pewdie shuffles awkwardly on the spot, uneasy at the others’ stares. He isn’t sure what is going on. Did they do something wrong? Unconsciously, his hand tightens around his crowbar.

Then, he realises what it is. Cry had not given them their real names but their online aliases instead, casually dropping it like it had been a natural thing. No wonder the others seem somewhat surprised. And now that Pewdie is aware of it himself, he’s astonished because he realises that the name he had been using to refer to himself all this time had been ‘Pewdie’. It had always been ‘Pewdie’ ever since he watched the world around him descend into chaos in his too-silent car.

“...I’m guessing those are nicknames?” Speed breaks his train of thoughts with a murmur before giving them a nonchalant shrug. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with using those. A bunch of us use them too. Take me for example. Actually, I’m not a good example. Maybe Delta right here... Sorry, it’s just that I had no idea that other people outside our group do the same thing. I always thought it was pretty cool if you called yourself something else. Makes it easy to pretend that all this is just some sick, weird reality. Like in a videogame.”

In the corner of Pewdie’s eye, he sees Cry lift his head in attention at the words. Pewdie finds himself wondering: Does Cry understand? Perhaps that is why he doesn’t seem to mind being called ‘Cry’ all this time...?

Now that he is thinking about it, Pewdie wonders why they have travelled around calling themselves ‘Pewdie’ and ‘Cry’ when there is no need to do so. They both know each other’s real names. They’re not playing videogames anymore. They’re living in the real world, however absurd and awful it is, so there is no need to keep their identities a secret. Nevertheless, Pewdie feels it to be a natural thing to call his friend and travelling partner by that name. He realises that the only reason he sees Cry as ‘Cry’ from the time of their reunion at that gas station was because the latter had called him ‘Pewds’ first.

“Oh, sorry,” Speed suddenly shakes his head as if shrugging off impoliteness. “It’s my turn to introduce myself properly. P.J. Speed or just ‘Speed’ at your service. And I’m guessing you already know Delta and Vegas right here.” After motioning vaguely at his group mates, he then steps closer and unexpectedly holds his hand out to Cry, “So, yeah. Welcome to the Fire House.”

Cry stares down at the hand in surprise like he can’t quite believe what he is seeing. Pewdie doesn’t blame him though since neither of them have been shown some form of human courtesy after months of its absence. Like Cry, Pewdie is surprised, not to mention warmed by this welcoming gesture. After a few seconds of flabbergasted silence, it seems that Cry isn’t going to take the offered hand but that changes when he awkwardly slips his hand into Speed’s and gives it a rather wobbly shake.

“Uh... thanks,” Cry mumbles, sounding embarrassed. When they part, Pewdie notices Cry forcefully tugging his hand back from Speed’s, clenching it into a fist and hiding it behind his back.

“No problem... ‘Cry’, right?” Speed says cheerfully, unaware of Cry’s actions just now. He then turns to offer his hand to Pewdie next. “And, was it ‘Pew...dee’?”

When Pewdie returns the other man’s handshake, he finds Speed’s grip strong and firm. When he doesn’t let go of Pewdie’s hand after a few shakes, Pewdie suddenly understands why Cry had to forcefully pull his back.

“Pewdie?” Speed repeats his name, as if tasting it in his tongue. The man is staring at him, his eyes narrowed in a scrutinising stare. He suddenly lets go of Pewdie’s hand and says brightly, “Ah-ha, are you... are you that dude from the internet?”

The other three people, including Cry funnily enough, turn to look at a surprised Pewdie. It’s been far too long since he thought about this, about the fact that he used to be something of a celebrity before the world around him broke down. He had forgotten that once upon a time, people around the globe used to watch him play videogames and that once in a while, he was stopped on the street because the public recognised him from the internet. Now, he lives in a different world, one where he is out surviving, scavenging for food and running away from flesh-eating zombies. To have this experience brought up like this at this time had been unexpected. As everyone stares at him in wonder, Pewdie squirms lightly on the spot, all too aware of the heat that’s creeping up the side of his face.

“Heh... um, you recognise me?” he murmurs weakly.

“Ah. So you _are_ , aren’t you?” Speed says triumphantly and a smile breaks out of that dark goatee. Pewdie is momentarily surprised when Speed suddenly reaches around and claps a hand on his shoulder. His touch is warm. “Ha-ha. You’re that dude who was on um... oh, what was it? Oh, yeah. YouTube. Wow, that is pretty cool, my friend.”

‘Pretty cool’? Pewdie thinks in bewilderment. “Oh... it’s not that... big of a deal...” he mumbles sheepishly amidst his uncontrollable blushing.

“Seriously? YouTube?” Pewdie had forgotten Vegas and Delta are still in the room with them. Vegas is tilting her head a little, squinting at him as if she is trying hard to recognise his face. “What did you do? You got a good singing voice? Or was it that you can dance?”

“No way, that’s not it,” Delta nudges her with an elbow, shaking his head. “You did something crazy in a video, didn’t you? You vlog about stuff, right?”

“He plays videogames,” comes Cry’s helpful remark, spoken with a tired and somewhat exasperated sigh from somewhere beside him. Pewdie notices that the moment he looks at the other man, Cry quickly glances away, pretending that he hadn’t just spent the last few minutes staring at him like the others had done. “He has a video-gaming channel on YouTube. Got a legion of subscribers. Goes by the name of ‘Pewdiepie’. Ring any bells?”

Shared blank looks are exchanged between the trio. “I don’t really watch a lot of video-gaming channels,” Speed admits sheepishly. “Apart from the occasional funny cat videos, I don’t spend a lot of time online because, you know, busy being on call at the hospital and all. But you do look awfully familiar to me so I had to say something. The fact that you’re here, you know, at this time with all these dead people walking around and everything... it’s pretty cool. You kind of wonder how the rich and famous are coping compared to the rest of us. So, yeah... Congratulations on reaching this far, dudes.” He finishes this off with another hearty clap on Pewdie’s shoulder and a brilliant smile.

Pewdie finds that Speed’s words are unexpectedly uplifting for him, causing a sense of pride to soar in his chest. It’s not every day that someone congratulates you for surviving this long. It’s weird, Pewdie thinks. Weird, but strangely nice.

“Um, thanks,” he says, feeling awkward and embarrassed and secretly pleased by the other man’s words. He then suddenly remembers Cry beside him and indicates towards him with a motioning gesture, “Er, Cry is also a Let’s Player. He has a YouTube channel as well. He’s pretty popular too.”

“Ah,” says Speed, his eyebrows rising with surprise.

“ _Both_ of you are from YouTube?” Delta exclaims. “Really? Whoa.”

“So, do you already know each other?” Vegas asks.

“Did you arrange to meet up when all hell broke loose?” Delta adds.

“Well, we sort of ran into each other one day,” Pewdie explains before anyone else chips in another remark or question. He’s unaware that the corner of his lip is stretching into a small smile. Geez, the amount of attention that he and Cry are getting is sort of embarrassing.

“By coincidence you mean?” Vegas says, her dark eyes curious. “Where did you meet–?”

“Um, hate to break up the party so early like this,” Cry suddenly pipes up. He is frowning a little at the floor, looking as if he is trying not to look annoyed in front of their hosts but Pewdie knows Cry well enough to recognise that he is. “But you wanted to check up on us, right? We’re, um, pretty tired, you see.”

“Oh? Well, why didn’t you say so before?” Speed says cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to Cry’s real mood. He then lets go of Pewdie’s shoulder – he isn’t even _aware_ that Speed had been touching him all this time – before ushering them all deeper into the room.

He and Cry are invited to sit on the plastic chairs and patiently wait for their turn. While doing so, they spend the next few minutes watching the interactions between Speed, Vegas and Delta with a strange sort of fascination. It doesn’t so much look like a typical doctor’s check-up. Instead, it looks more like a casual meeting of friends, albeit with medical equipment involved. While Speed and Delta exchange a variety of jokes and amusing quips as the former listens to his chest with a stethoscope, Vegas teases Speed endlessly about the state of his beard as he checks her eyes with a small flashlight.

“Seriously, you scare elderly folk and small children with all that hair,” Vegas is saying, wrinkling her nose at the other man’s goatee. “I don’t know how Tesla puts up with you. Or ‘Betta for that matter. I’m surprised she hasn’t yet snuck into your room and shaved you while you slept. She’s fuckin’ handy with them scissors.”

“We’ve been through this before, V,” Speed says with an overdramatic sigh of exasperation. “I’m trying to fulfil one of my manly goals in life. Don’t crush a dude’s dreams like that. No amount of hounding from you is going to make me rid myself of these fabulous locks. You’re just jealous that I have more hair than you.”

“ _Pffftt_ ,” Delta suddenly ducks his head, trying to stifle a laugh. “Oh boy.”

“Say that again, Caveman,” Vegas grits out before seizing a handful of the other man’s beard and tugging it hard.

“Ow, _ow_! Okay, okay!” Speed yelps, lightly slapping Vegas’s hand away. “Sorry, sorry!”

For Pewdie, it’s a pleasing sight to behold and one that brings back nostalgic memories for him. He can’t remember the last time he had been like this with his own friends. He wonders that maybe, now that they are here, he and Cry don’t need to go through this daily struggle on their own anymore. Maybe it’s better for them to be part of a group because there’s a higher chance of survival when in numbers. Maybe one day they can be just like this trio again, laughing and joking around with their friends as if an apocalypse never happened. Maybe what they needed is the company of other people instead of just each other.

“All done,” Pewdie hears Speed announce abruptly sometime later. “You two go on ahead and dump your stuff in the storeroom. Also, make me a bowl of ramen while you’re at it, D?”

“Why don’t you make one yourself, you lazy ass?” Vegas says with a roll of her eyes.

“I don’t mind,” Delta’s voice sounds off from a distance. “Anyway, we’ll see you guys later.” There is a sound of a door opening and swinging shut with a click before a brief silence descends upon them.

“Sorry that took so long,” Speed apologises, finally turning his attention to the waiting Pewdie and Cry. “Oh, you dudes are falling asleep in your seats!” he exclaims, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “Better get to work before I lose you two completely!”

At this, Pewdie immediately straightens up in his chair, suddenly realising that while he had been reminiscing about the past, his mind had drifted off into a trance and his eyes had become heavy, threatening to shut. Beside him, Cry is already asleep, slumped in his own seat with his head lolling on one shoulder. The shovel he clutches in his hands rests carelessly across his lap.

“Poor guy,” mumbles Speed, nudging his head towards Cry. “Out like a light, eh?”

“Yeah,” says Pewdie, getting up from his chair. “He’s gone through a lot.”

Pewdie sees Speed’s lips twist into a thoughtful pout. “Yeah, you both look like you’ve come a long way,” he surmises. “How long have you been wondering around without food and water?”

How does he know that? Is it that obvious from the way we look? Pewdie thinks but decides not to ask this out loud. Instead, he answers straightforwardly, “About a day.”

“You’re lucky that you found us,” Speed says with an approving nod. “It gets pretty hot around here sometimes. It’s also harder to find food these days. Everyone’s fighting for their share of supplies and all.”

The remark causes Pewdie to ask, “Yeah, what’s the deal with that? We looked around for stuff, anything we could use but we found nothing at all. It was sort of ridiculous.”

“Well, these are desperate times,” Speed murmurs pensively. “It’s been a couple of months since it all went down, you know? People try to leave, only to find that they can’t. There’s all sorts of reasons as to why that is. So they stay. They try to live and wait it out and in the process, they run out of things. Food, water, clothes. It’s tougher if you’ve got families – those are pretty high maintenance after all. In the end, there’s not enough to go around so you do what you can. Maybe even start turning on each other.”

“That sounds pretty tough,” says Pewdie.

“Yup, it is,” comes the reply before they fall into a brief silence.

“How long have _you_ been here?” Pewdie asks conversationally. “If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

Speed gives him a nonchalant shrug, “Since the beginning, I guess. Haven’t left at all. I was working at the town hospital when it all went down. Most traumatising thing you can experience. Just panic and mayhem. It was pretty crazy.”

Pewdie tries to imagine how that first day might have looked like in a hospital if he had been in Speed’s position. “God, it must have been terrible,” he says in a quiet murmur. Inevitably, he also wonders what it might have been like if he stayed longer at the airport on that first day and shudders at the thought that he can’t.

“You could say that it was kinda like in the movies,” Speed says, slipping his hands into the pockets of his fireman’s jacket. “Only that this movie hasn’t ended yet. You don’t know whether it will ever end. There’s no way of telling how something will go, especially when you can’t control it.”

After another brief, contemplative silence, Speed holds out a coaxing hand to Pewdie and says, “Come on. I’ll check up on you first. Make sure you’re still running okay. Let’s give your pal a little more time to snooze for a bit.”

Pewdie finds himself smiling at this thoughtful suggestion before obliging with Speed’s request. He lets the other man examine him, lets him check his pulse and listen to his chest with the stethoscope, lets him peer into his eyes and mouth for signs of illness.

All throughout the examination, Speed keeps up a cheerful chatter about a number of topics – how uneventful his day had been at the Fire House, about the fact that he was starting to miss the hospital where he once worked at, about how he wishes he could have adopted a pet of his own before “it all went down” because he’s never had one in his life. There’s something professional about this talkative tendency of his though. Pewdie has a feeling that Speed is used to chatting amiably in this manner as a way to reassure the nervous patients whom he once tended in the past. He seems like an easy-going individual, jovial and friendly towards everyone. Curiously, he doesn’t seem to hold any suspicion towards him or Cry for their unexpected arrival at their fire station.

“I was thinking of either adopting those little French bulldogs or maybe a pug,” Speed is just saying as he measures Pewdie’s heartbeat with a stopwatch and a thumb on his pulse point. “You know, a small dog that doesn’t cause so much trouble–”

“Doesn’t cause trouble?” Pewdie is far too tempted to say something about this. “Pugs are a _lot_ of trouble. I’ve got two at home. Oh my god, you wouldn’t _believe_ the amount of mess they can make.”

“Seriously? Are little dogs that much trouble?” Speed takes a moment to think. “Maybe it’s better to get a bigger one?”

“I think dogs in general are just hard work,” Pewdie says. “They’re great companions but you need to give them a lot of attention. It won’t be good for the dog if you’re always out working.”

“Aw, man,” moans Speed. “Maybe I should adopt a hamster instead.” At this, Pewdie finds himself chuckling in response.

When Speed inspects the healing cuts on his palms, he lets out a low whistle. “Something happened there,” he comments, smoothing his thumbs over the heels of Pewdie’s hands. “But this doesn’t look too bad. No infection or anything. In fact, they’re healing quite nicely. _Geez_ , you’ve been pretty fucking lucky so far, eh, Pewdie?”

Once Pewdie is deemed fine and is allowed to sit down again, Speed turns to the sleeping Cry next.

“You want to wake him up?” he asks with a sheepish grin. “He’s holding onto that shovel there pretty tight. I’m afraid that I might get hit if I try to do something. The last time I tried to wake Vegas up, she nearly shot me in the face.”

Pewdie reaches out and gently shakes Cry awake.

“Wh-Wazzit?” As expected, Cry immediately rouses and rubs his eyes. He then squints in the glare of the room lights and mumbles, “...The fuck are we?”

“You’re still at the Fire House,” Speed answers him with a casual wave. “Sorry we had to wake you. Got to check up on you and see if you’re alright.”

“Sorry,” Cry groans, rubbing his eyes again. He seems to remember his bearings and when he looks up, he’s still not glancing at Pewdie. “I sort of have a headache right now.”

“Hm? Headache?” Speed says, his lips jutting out of that impressive bushy goatee in a thoughtful pout. “Say, when was the last time you ate or drank anything again? Just wanted to make sure...”

“About... an hour ago,” Cry mumbles back, setting his shovel down to the floor. “Delta and Vegas gave us somethi– _ah_!” Just as he stands and straightens himself up, Cry suddenly doubles over with pain and Pewdie springs up from his seat in response. He has a strange feeling he’d seen this happen before already.

“You hurt?” Speed says worriedly, taking Cry’s elbow and pulling him closer. The other man is cringing in pain, clutching his stomach with his arms. Did something happen? Pewdie thinks in alarm, taking a step closer but still keeping a respective distance from the pair. Is it stomach cramps? Or something worse?

“Is he...?” Pewdie breathes.

“No, I-I’m fine, really,” Cry stutters amidst his cringing as he tries in vain to shake Speed’s hand off his arm. “Must’ve... must’ve bumped into something on the way.”

“Come on,” Speed coaxes, squeezing his elbow. “Let’s take a look at whatever that is.”

“It’s really nothing,” Cry mutters stubbornly.

“I’m a nurse,” says Speed in a gentle, reassuring voice which Pewdie is certain was used to address his former patients. “I can help you, Cry. Let’s take a look at that.”

After a short staring contest, Pewdie watches Cry reluctantly tug up the hem of his shirt to expose his bare stomach. To his shock, there is a large purplish blue bruise blemishing the skin, shining hideously under the room’s fluorescent lights. Pewdie feels his own stomach drop at the sight.

What the _hell_ is that? is the first thing he wants to yell out at Cry because he feels horrified and angry at the discovery. Where did you get that? _How_ did you get that? What did you do to get this? How long has it been there? Have you been walking around with that bruise all day? Have you just found out about it like the rest of us?

“Damn. That looked like it hurt,” Speed says, hissing before crouching on the ground to peer closely at the bruise. He then begins to gingerly prod the area around it, making Cry flinch every time he touches a particularly sore spot. “What hit you? Something hard by the looks of it. And with some force too.”

Cry’s face is scrunched up, teeth gritted as he stares down at the floor. His face is flushed with shame as he forcefully hisses out, “I’m fine. It’ll get better, right? It doesn’t even hurt that much.”

The hell you are! Pewdie wants to snap aloud but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know why his words won’t come out of his mouth. Instead, he stands there, listening to this exchange with clenched fists, staring at the way the bruise marring Cry’s stomach rises and falls alongside the latter’s breathing. Pewdie’s mind races frantically, piecing together the snippets of memories from what happened before. Now that he is thinking about it, it had been blatantly obvious from the start. He remembers Cry clutching his stomach when he picked himself up from the ground after Pewdie tackled him down, remembers him doubling over with pain when they hid in that bedroom on the top floor. He even remembers Cry casually drawing his attention onto his grazed knee while hiding the bruise under his shirt.

He had _known_. Cry had known all along and he didn’t tell him, Pewdie, about it. Why would he do that?

“Hm, I don’t know about that,” Speed’s voice, sounding doubtful, floats into Pewdie’s hearing amidst the cloud of anger and disorientation floating in his head. “A shiner like that is bound to sting. But you’re really lucky that whatever got you didn’t hit you anywhere higher. Or anywhere else. They could’ve gotten your lung or your liver. That would’ve been bad news.”

 _And you could’ve been bleeding internally all this time,_ Pewdie surmises the rest of Speed’s unspoken words. Goddamn it. We had nothing on us. You were losing water. You could’ve been losing blood too. You could’ve died on my watch. Why didn’t you tell me this earlier? Why would you hide this from me, Cry, you fucking idiot?

“Hey, hey. You don’t need to worry, Pewdie,” Speed must have noticed his distress and concern for Cry’s wound from the way he’d been staring intensely at it and decides to reassure him. “It’s a near miss to any of his vital organs so it’s not that serious. It’ll heal up in no time.”

“...He didn’t tell me,” Pewdie manages to grit out with difficulty. He wants to confront Cry about this but he won’t do it when Speed is with them. Instead, he shoots a glare at Cry who is, as usual, avoiding his eyes. “He didn’t even tell me he got hurt.”

Speed gets up from his crouch, glancing thoughtfully between Pewdie and Cry as if sensing the tension between them. Seeing that Speed had finished examining him, Cry hurriedly pulls his shirt over the bruise.

“Well, now that that’s out in the open, it’s alright now,” Speed says, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “I’ll go get some ice and some painkillers for that headache of yours, Cry. Then, I’ll take you two to where you can get some rest.”

“I thought we were going to go see someone named Doc,” Cry says, a frown forming on his face.

“Ah, Delta and Vegas said that, didn’t they?” says Speed with a nod. “Save that for tomorrow. Just focus on getting some–”

“ _Ramen_!” Delta suddenly bursts through the door, carrying a steaming bowl of something hot. The aroma hits Pewdie’s nose and instantly, his anger is temporary forgotten only to be replaced with an aching hunger. He can actually feel his mouth begin to water. Before him, Speed startles at Delta’s sudden and noisy entrance and actually jumps a little into the air.

“Why can’t you people just _knock_?” he yaps, clutching his heart with both hands. “It’s such a simple thing to do. Knock on the door like any other decent human being. Mind your manners. God, stop trying to scare my fucking pants off! You’re as bad as V!”

“I take that as a compliment,” Vegas makes her presence by poking her head around the doorframe. “Good job, D. I trained you well.”

“Still here, eh?” Delta asks, crossing the room to deposit the steaming bowl on top of Speed’s desk. Pewdie can’t help but stare at the moist noodles floating in its steaming hot broth and wonders how it might taste like in his mouth.

“Man, you look even more pooped than ever,” he hears Delta say. “Speed, you need to send these two to bed.”

“Yeah, yeah, can you two please go away?” Speed answers him exasperatedly. “Next time, I am locking this damn door. You hear me? I am _locking_ it!”

There is a sound of some snickering before the door clicks shut.

“Seriously, sometimes I think those two are out to get me,” Speed mutters, walking back to the desk. Pewdie snaps out of his trance, tearing his gaze away from the bowl of noodles and pretends that he hadn’t been ogling it for the past minute. When he glances at Cry, he is not surprised to find the other man’s eyes locked on Speed’s food as well.

Speed, however, quickly notices this.

“You know what? I’m not really that hungry after all,” he says casually, wandering behind his desk to pull out one of its drawers. He then takes out a sandwich bag containing wooden chopsticks and some plastic spoons and forks. He ignores the former and extracts two pairs of the latter, setting them onto the desk. “Those idiots made me lose my appetite. What about you two eat this for me? It’s a shame to just throw it away.”

There is a stunned and surprised silence from Pewdie and Cry as they both stare at Speed in disbelief. Pewdie knows that this is just a simple gesture, giving away one’s food to someone else who is hungry, but to him, this is a significant deed. He had not expected to be treated with such kindness like this, especially when Cry had been attacked the night before.

He swallows his disbelief and says in a quiet voice, “You don’t mind?”

“Oh, go ahead. I’m okay with it,” Speed says easily with a laugh, picking up the spoons and forks and handing one of each to him and Cry. “You both need this a lot more.”

This time, it is Cry who speaks, albeit in an incoherent mumble, “...Thanks, man.”

“S’alright,” Speed replies good-naturedly. “Share this between you two, okay?”

Share? Pewdie thinks. Usually, he doesn’t mind sharing food with someone else. Besides, he and Cry have grown used to splitting food portions or just sharing it between themselves. It is only when they find themselves sitting close together, poised over the bowl of steaming noodles that Pewdie realises that this isn’t like the eating experience which he’s accustomed to. Something had changed between them. Pewdie is still displeased with the discovery of Cry’s bruise as well as his irrational behaviour from their last dispute and Cry probably hates him because he had brought up something sensitive between them again. On the whole, they’re not on good terms with each other right now. He notices the way Cry is shutting him out, from the way he is sitting with tensed and squared shoulders, from the way he is still avoiding his eyes and from the general reluctant aura in which he emits. This uneasiness is contagious and Pewdie, too, begins to feel awkward and uncomfortable for sitting so close to Cry.

Speed emerges from behind the desk and makes his way over to them. “I’m just going to the other room for a while,” he says, clapping a hand on each of their shoulders and giving them a squeeze. “Give you guys some privacy. I mean, the last thing you want is some creepy-ass dude watching you eat.”

Pewdie finds himself snorting in sheepish laughter at the remark. “You’re not that creepy, man,” he tells him. In fact, you’re not that bad, he adds quietly to himself. But please don’t leave us both in here.

Unfortunately, Speed does not catch the hidden message in Pewdie’s wincing smile. “Oh, well, that’s good to know,” he says with a somewhat theatrical sigh. He then gives them another clap before taking his hands off their shoulders and walking towards the door. “See you in ten minutes?”

The silence following Speed’s departure from the room is thick and overwhelming. Pewdie fights hard not to fidget awkwardly on the spot.

“Um,” he says when neither of them move to touch the noodles. “After you.”

“...Thanks,” Cry’s reply is so quiet that it is barely more than a whisper. He lowers his head towards the bowl and begins to eat.

They take turns eating mouthfuls of noodles for a couple of minutes without speaking, almost like two strangers who are forced to share a meal together. It is the strangest feeling Pewdie experiences so far and the uneasiness between them is almost enough to make him lose his own appetite. He barely acknowledges the slightly spicy tang of the broth or the pleasant texture of the noodles on his tongue. He thinks about maybe striking up some small talk, no matter how silly it might become, just so he can break this unnerving silence.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” he murmurs, trying to sound enthusiastic. To be honest, he’s not really enjoying the noodles as much as he wants to.

Cry merely nods in turn. It’s understandable because his mouth is full of noodles and is therefore unable to get a word through.

Several minutes pass by in silence and the only sounds in the room are the mixture of slurping noises and the gentle tap of plastic cutlery against the porcelain bowl. In the end, Pewdie admits defeat. He can’t get another word in during their meal so he lets their silence continue, tries to focus on filling up his empty stomach instead.

Naturally, the quietness of the room entices his mind to buzz with speculative thoughts. He thinks about the bruise gleaming hideously on the skin of Cry’s stomach; wonders where on earth he might have obtained it. Cry mentioned that he must have bumped it against something hard but what hard object or form of force could have the power to leave a mark like that?

Then, he suddenly remembers the graze on Cry’s knee, remembers them crashing on the ground after Pewdie caught up with him and wrestled him down, remembers how Cry had continued to assure him that he mustn’t worry about any injuries which were received from the fall. He gradually begins to understand why Cry had kept that bruise hidden from him all along.

This is my fault, isn’t it? Pewdie thinks, feeling increasingly guilty at the realisation. You got this when I tackled you down. No wonder you wouldn’t tell me.

Pewdie has never been so grateful when Speed returns sometime later, munching on a chocolate biscuit and holding an icepack and some pills in one arm.

“Finished?” he mumbles through a mouthful of food. “Great! Let me show you where you can get some sleep.”

After picking up their things, Pewdie and Cry follow Speed out of the infirmary and down an empty corridor which opens to another hallway lined with doors on either side.

“So where is everyone?” Pewdie makes an effort to ask because he thinks it seems rather quiet in this building right now.

“Here and there,” Speed answers with a casual wave of his hand. “Actually, I don’t know where the hell they might be at. They like to do their own thing. All of us do actually but hey, you’ll meet them soon enough.”

Speed then makes a show of opening each of the doors in the hallway until he finds one to his satisfaction. “Here we go,” he says triumphantly, flicking on the lights.

It’s a plain room with whitewashed walls, a couple of simple desks and wardrobes and a mini fridge shoved against a bookshelf. Overall, it looks like an average college dorm room. The most striking thing about it though are the bunk beds, stacked on top of one another, making the whole thing look almost embarrassingly juvenile. Pewdie stares at it in bafflement before shooting Speed an enquiring look. Is he expecting them to sleep in beds like this?

“Thought you dudes might want to stick together for the night,” Speed explains, shoving his hands into his fireman’s jacket pockets. “After all, you just arrived, right? New place. New people. It’s a lot to take in. Might feel safer staying together for a bit. You know, get used to everything. Hope that’s alright.”

It’s a surprisingly reasonable explanation which satisfies Pewdie and he appreciates the considerate nature of it. Although his and Cry’s mutual bitterness for each other had made them awkward and uncomfortable, Pewdie doesn’t want to leave Cry alone in this place full of strangers. At least, not yet anyway. He’s grateful that Speed seems to understand that.

“Um, thanks for these,” he hears Cry mutter to Speed, holding up the bag of ice and some pills which the latter had given to him earlier on.

“No problem,” Speed says, grinning through his beard. “Make sure you drink lots of water every few hours or so. Try to replace all the fluids you lost. That fridge there should have something to drink. Also, there’s a bathroom down the hall. You can’t miss those useful toilet signs. If you need anything else, I’ll be at the infirmary – that’s the room where we met, of course. Hopefully you won’t get lost on the way.”

When he leaves, shutting the door behind him, the general cheerful air disappears with him as well. A heavy silence descends almost uncomfortably into the room. Cry doesn’t waste time walking to the bunk beds, toeing off his boots before climbing to the top one. He doesn’t speak as he places his shovel down on the sheets, pulls off his cap and tugs up his shirt so he can press the ice bag on his bruise. Pewdie notices that Cry has his back to him, as if he doesn’t want Pewdie to see what he is doing.

“I’ll–” Pewdie’s voice comes out before he can stop himself. “I’ll do that for you.” He doesn’t know why he’s offering this but he feels that it is something he needs to do.

“You don’t need to do anything,” Cry gives a direct reply without looking back down at him for the first time since their quarrel. “This is a one man job. I’ll be fine.”

“...You could’ve told me,” Pewdie says quietly, carefully choosing his words. He actually wants to say a lot of things – Why did you think it was a good idea to hide this from me? I would have eventually found out. Are you an idiot? What were you thinking? Goddammit, Cry. You could’ve been dying and I wouldn’t even know.

There is a hesitant pause, almost as if Cry is weighing his own words before he says, “It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

“What does that mean?” That came out a little harsh, Pewdie realises. He doesn’t want to start up another argument but seeing Cry’s bruise again isn’t helping him at all. He takes in a deep breath to calm himself down.

“If I had been seriously hurt,” Cry says, keeping his head down and his gaze focused on tending his stomach. “What would you have done?”

“I would have done _something_ ,” Pewdie answers instantly and a little too quickly without thinking. “It’s better to know instead of being kept in the dark.”

“We don’t have anything on us,” Cry reminds him. “We couldn’t find anything, remember? So what would you have done? Nothing. That’s why it wouldn’t have made any difference.”

There is another pause as Cry takes a moment to adjust the ice pack on his stomach. On the ground, Pewdie stares at the floor with his hands clenched into fists. Cry is right though, he is forced to agree. When it comes down to it, there is nothing Pewdie can do. But still–

“...You don’t get to do that,” Pewdie mutters in dismay. “You don’t keep shit like this from me.”

“Well, it isn’t any of your business,” he hears Cry say from the top of the bunk and there is a hard edge in his voice. “Worrying about it achieves nothing.”

“But it _is_ my business,” says Pewdie firmly, distressingly. “I shouldn’t have chased after you and tackled you down. I didn’t know that it could cause this much damage.”

When Cry doesn’t say anything, Pewdie lifts his head and sees the other man sitting completely still on the bed, as if he deliberately stopped moving in the middle of his actions. If Pewdie hadn’t known better, the silence that Cry has fallen into is one of unexpected surprise. Was it something he said?

“...You think this is your fault?” the words are so quiet that Pewdie barely hears it. He can’t see Cry’s face from down here and it’s frustrating, trying to speak to someone who has their back to you.

“Where else could you have gotten that?” Pewdie says with a frown, unsure about where this is going, although he has a feeling he is about to find out. He also knows that he won’t like what he is about to hear next.

“One of the bandits kicked me when I got attacked,” Cry reveals in an indifferent tone. Pewdie stares in horror at the other man and immediately feels a strong hatred flare up in his chest towards the two thieves. How dare they hurt Cry? he thinks angrily. Fucking assholes!

“Didn’t realise I got hurt until after you pushed me down,” Cry continues to speak, unaware of Pewdie’s changing expression, and then his voice seems to take on a note of bitter sarcasm. “So take a breather, will you? This wasn’t you. Don’t flatter yourself. You’ve done enough damage as it is.”

What the hell does that mean? Pewdie wants to ask but ends up biting back his words. Suddenly, he knows. He knows that what Cry is really saying is: _You’ve hurt me enough as it is._

“I’m going to sleep now,” Cry announces abruptly, slipping his feet under the bed sheets. He lies down, again with his back to Pewdie, and keeps pressing the ice pack against his stomach. It isn’t very long until Cry’s breathing slows down, becoming regular and deep as he drifts off into slumber.

A few minutes later, Pewdie shuts off the light and climbs into the bottom bunk, slipping his crowbar under his pillow. He doesn’t sleep immediately like Cry had done. He can’t sleep yet, not after the other man’s bitter remark. He isn’t sure what to feel right now. He isn’t sure whether he should continue to be mad at Cry or feel guilty about what he had done. It had been an easy feat, knowing the other man’s pressure point and using it to his advantage. He sort of hates himself for it.

“Trying to sort out your thoughts again?” it is Map who is speaking to him. He realises that he hadn’t talked to Map and Torchy for a while. It seems that the silence in the room, the silence that’s becoming frequent again between himself and Cry, is making him turn to these inanimate objects for consultation once more.

“I don’t know what happened,” Pewdie says, thinking about their latest verbal fight. “And yeah, I know I shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t fair to Cry. I feel...” he pauses, swallowing down the unpleasant feeling that’s rising in his throat. “I feel awful.”

“But you don’t really regret it, do you, Pewds?” Torchy says in a squeak. “I don’t think you’re sorry you said those things.”

“Don’t be stupid,” snaps Pewdie, taking Torchy out of his pocket and glaring at it. “I was being mean. I went too far again. I’m such a heartless prick. God, why would you even say that? Of _course_ I’m sorry.”

“But it isn’t the same thing,” Torchy shoots back. “Feeling awful and being sorry.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“You feel awful because you hurt Cry,” Map explains with an exasperated sigh, trying to sound reasonable. “That you brought up the issue with the car again when you already told him it’s over. And you brought up his family, knowing that it’s a sensitive spot for him. But you’re not sorry that you confronted him. You don’t regret saying it even if it did hurt Cry. After all, you told him what you thought of him. How tired you can get of him. How he sometimes doesn’t stop. I know what you’re going to say, Pewdie. You’re going to say that you don’t mind it. That you’re cool with it. But really, deep down, you know that he frustrates you. He needs to know that. He can’t just keep going and expect you to follow without complaint.”

Map is right. He doesn’t regret everything that he said. About how Cry sometimes drives him up the wall. About how he never wants to talk about his family. About how he just keeps everything to himself. He realises this now. He realises now why he feels so fucking satisfied with himself when he blurted out those cold, sharp words to Cry’s face.

He shouldn’t have done it? No, not really. Maybe it was about time that he did.

“Fucking hell,” Pewdie breathes in astonishment. “What happened to me?”

Both Map and Torchy fall into speechless silence. Whether they are unable to answer him or are simply refusing to do so, he does not know. In the end, Pewdie lies there in the dark, all too aware that he can’t think of a way to make this better, to fix what he had cracked open between himself and Cry. He hopes that somehow time and circumstance can heal this damage, hopes that that moment will come soon.

Eventually, his thoughts begin to turn to Vegas, Delta and Speed and to where he and Cry are now. Is this a good idea? He wonders as he stares up at the underside of Cry’s bunk. Have I made the right choice bringing us here? There was nothing else we could do. We were desperate. Cry was being stubborn. I was frustrated. I snapped. He hates my guts right now. I don’t regret what I said. Now, we’re here. Now, something new begins.

What’s going to happen to us?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I'm almost upset they didn't enjoy that ramen.]
> 
> So, some notes. Firstly, it was about time someone (sort of) recognises Pewds from the internet because why not? I don't know what trippy spell Pewds cast in order to gain subscribers by the millions but I'm sure some people should know who he is, even in a zombie apocalypse. I didn't want to make the whole recognition thing too overwhelming which is why the character who does recognise him isn't even a fan of his. (Also, how is Speed for you? Remind you of anyone we know?)
> 
> Secondly, it was about time someone addresses the whole 'Pewdie' and 'Cry' nicknames thing because people are probably going to wonder why the hell these two have been going around calling each other by different aliases instead of just their real names. In fact, why haven't Pewds and Cry notice this yet? So, boom. I thought I should bring this up here for the convenience of the characters and (probably) for the readers as well. Besides, I do enjoy the fact that Pewds mentions his reason for why he calls Cry as 'Cry' is because "the latter had called him 'Pewds' first". Which is true. So there.
> 
> Eventually, Cry's secret-but-not-so-secret bruise was bound to be exposed and here, it sends Pewds into brief panic. I thought it was fitting that Pewds would think he might be the culprit for the bruise first, that is, until Cry shatters that illusion.
> 
> Regarding that last bit with Pewds mulling over his actions (with a little help from Map and Torchy), I thought he needed to realise that he shouldn't guilt trip over what he did. Cry needs to do some waking up as well and see/notice a little more of his and Pewds's team dynamics. I needed Pewds to get over his sort-of fear of saying the wrong thing and upsetting Cry and say/stand up for what he really thinks. I hope that's clear for you guys.
> 
> As always, feedback - kudos, comments, blah blah - are greatly appreciated. Here's a bow to those who had dropped either in the previous chapter! Thank you again for all your support, everyone. Until the next one then.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special, massive shout-out and thank you to the wonderful Chameishida for drawing fanart for this fic. Well, technically it was a doodle. A fan doodle. Whatever. SHOVEL ALL THE ZOMBIES YO.
> 
> Also, welcome back to the darlings, Azeran and Keli. Thanks for those multiple comments.
> 
> Go read and meet the rest of the gang, my lovelies.

**14.**

It's daytime now. Cry knows this because the moment he rouses from sleep and sits up on his bunk bed, he sees sunlight piercing the cracks of the wooden boards that cover their dark room's only window. When he finishes jamming his glasses onto his face, he edges towards the ladder connecting the bunk beds together and descends carefully. His whole body aches in protest when he forces it to move and he blames this pain from the aftereffects of exhaustion the day before. By the time he finally makes it to the floor and feels his way to the wall, he is able to find the light switch and flick it on. Instantly, the room is thrown in a fluorescent white light and Cry discovers, to his alarm, that the bunk bed below his is void of its occupant. Pewdie was gone.

His first reaction to this is to find Pewdie immediately. His mind begins to throw questions at him: Where could he be? Did the people here take him away? What did they do to him? Could they be torturing him no why would they torture him we know nothing about anything what's going to happen– Okay, wait, stop. Stop for a _second_. Hold that phone, Cry, and _breathe._ You're overthinking this. You've missed something.

Because he had just spotted a post-it note stuck to one of the wooden panels of the bunk bed, scribbled with his name on it:

_Cry. Went to get something to eat. Please don't worry. – Pewds_

It seems that Pewdie must have risen earlier before him, Cry realises. So he's not in trouble after all and he wasn't taken in the middle of the night. Cry finds himself breathing a sigh of relief before reaching up to absent-mindedly massage his temple. His headache is mostly gone but he can still feel an echo of its torturous throbbing deep inside his skull. He limps all the way to the boarded-up windows and tries to peek through the biggest crack he can find. Bright sunlight streams through it, temporarily blinding him instead of giving him a clear view of the outside world. He pulls back and tries to blink away the dark blots in his vision; wonders how long he had been asleep all this time.

There is another handwritten note on the desk, held down by a small toiletry bag – the kind one sometimes gets as a complimentary gift from hotels. It contains some bottles of soap and shampoo, a foldable toothbrush, toothpaste and a razor. This time, the note isn't written by Pewdie because it reads, _Here you go! Clean yourself up! – Speed,_ in unfamiliar handwriting. He picks it up, examining it in his hands.

"So this is really happening, huh?" he mutters to himself. He thinks back to the events of the night before, to his and Pewdie's interactions with Delta, Vegas and Speed. Although they seemed friendly and welcoming enough, he doesn't fully trust them yet nor is he expecting a fully warm welcome from the rest of the group. However, now that he and Pewdie have reached this far, Cry finds himself willing to go with whatever happens. He will endure this as long as they keep their guard up and not lose sight of their priorities. After all, he doesn't intend for them to stay here very long. He hopes that, after some food and rest, he and Pewdie will pick up where they left off and continue journeying towards the radio tower, just like they planned. There is no reason for them to stay any longer than they have to.

As for Pewdie, Cry can't bring himself to forgive him yet. No, he doesn't _want_ to forgive him yet, not when the incident is still fresh in his mind. He still remembers feeling the stab of betrayal and hurt in his chest before he went numb with shock from the effect of the other man's words. Last night, before going to bed, he had been surprised when Pewdie assumed that he was responsible for the bruise on Cry's stomach. Why would Pewdie even think that though? Think that Cry's wellbeing – including what happens to it – be his concern, his fault? Cry didn't know what to feel about this. In the end, he found himself reassuring the other man that he wasn't to blame but not without slipping in a sarcastic remark that's designed to sting. Pewdie needed to be reminded after all. He needed to be reminded of the fact that Cry is still mad at him for doing something like that. For going back on his word. For fucking hurting him.

When he blocks the memory from his head and retrieves his shovel from his bunk, he cautiously tries the door and finds it unlocked. Peeking outside, he sees that the hallway lies silent and undisturbed. Only the buzz of the ceiling lights and the distant hum of the air vents echo up and down the passage. He slips outside and creeps down the passageway, clutching the shovel and toiletry bag in either hand.

Speed had been right about easily finding the toilets. Right at the end of the hall are the familiar, universal restroom signs. There are a number of shower stalls inside the bathrooms, most of them looking clean and unused. A small square window lets in the chamber's current source of light, leaving the marble tiled corners draped in shadow. Cry doesn't mind the dark though and once he props his shovel against the wall, he sets himself to work, ducking under the spray of cold water a few seconds after he turns on the tap.

He takes his time cleaning himself up and once he towels himself dry and puts his clothes back on, he automatically retrieves his shovel, hoisting the strap over his shoulders and lets it rest across his back. When he steps out of the bathroom, the blade of his shovel suddenly becomes caught in between the swinging door and the doorframe, stopping him from moving forward.

"Dammit," Cry mutters, turning back to extricate himself. Once he tugs his shovel free and watches the door swing shut, he turns around and almost walks into someone standing right in front of him.

" _Holy fff_ –!" Cry jumps, stifling a curse in his mouth and jerks backwards, only to crash into the closed door behind him. His shoulder explodes in pain at the contact and he instantly clutches it, staring at the man who had mysteriously appeared not several feet before him in shock.

Where the fuck did he come from? Cry wonders in disbelief, trying to calm down his fast-beating heart. I didn't even hear him coming up to me.

The stranger standing before him is about a head taller in height, with an angular face that's supported by a long, pale neck and an overall figure that is lean and slim like a dancer's. Short, pale blonde hair adorns his head and his small, turned-up nose has a bridge that looks a little bent, as if it had been broken sometime in the past. He stands languidly on the spot, his hands buried into the front pocket of his hoodie and his thin wrists look white under the ceiling light.

But it is his eyes which strike Cry completely off-guard. Each are notably different in colour. His left eye is brown, like dry leaves in autumn, while his right is blue, like the sky. Under the white light, the different colours seem to stand out of his pale face. Cry finds himself speechless for one moment because he is lost in that iridescent stare.

"...Who?" Cry finally says, his voice coming out quiet.

"Hmm," hums the man, taking a sudden step forward so that he is standing directly in Cry's path. He then cocks his head to the side as if he is trying to take a closer look at him. In the process, his brown and blue eyes flash in the light for a second but his mouth remains unchanged, set in a straight line. Cry can't tell what he is thinking from his expression but he does recognise a spark of curiosity in that gaze.

Now that he is standing this close to him, Cry has to tilt his head up to follow his eyes. He is suddenly aware that the other man's looming height is blocking the light, casting a shadow over him, making him feel small and oddly young. He swallows, trying not to shrink back.

"You must be Pewdie's friend," says the man. He has a gravelly voice that is strangely similar to Cry's own. "You're Cry."

Cry finds that he can't tear his gaze away from the other man's eyes, "Yeah, I am."

"Ahhh," breathes the man, cocking his head the other way, and Cry tenses under the intensity of his scrutiny. "Yes," he continues in a pensive tone. "I see how it is between you two."

Then, to Cry's astonishment, he steps back from him and walks away, his footsteps making soft, scraping noises against the floor. He then opens a random door and disappears behind it, leaving Cry on his own once again. Eventually, Cry releases the breath he didn't know he'd been holding throughout that encounter. What the hell just happened? he thinks in bewilderment. Who _was_ that guy? Where did he come from? Had he been waiting for me to come out all along? Why did he just leave like that? That was weird. And what does he mean by knowing something between me and Pewds? What is he saying?

Wait. What _is_ he saying?

The more he thinks about it, the more Cry can't get the man's words out of his head. Although they had been uttered so casually, so matter-of-factly, he can't shake off the feeling that there might be some hidden implication in them. The fact that he is unable to figure out the meaning troubles him. 'I see how it is between you two'? What the hell is that guy trying to say?

Does he know about his and Pewdie's mutual grudge against each other? The fact that they're not speaking? If so, who told him that? Did Pewds tell him that? Why would Pewds tell anyone about our business? They don't need to know about us, about whatever is going on between us. They don't need to know that we'd been fighting. They don't need to know at all because this doesn't concern them. Pewds must have told that guy, the stupid idiot.

Unless. Unless that wasn't what he meant. Unless that man was implying that he knows there is something _else_ going on between him and Pewds. Something deeper.

No. Impossible. There _is_ nothing else. Despite their recent dispute, he and Pewdie are long-time friends, partners and fellow survivors. There is nothing else going on between them. Dammit, Cry is probably overthinking this. That man's words might not mean anything at all. He shouldn't mull and worry over something like this. Come on, he tells himself. Get it together, man.

After a few minutes of stillness, Cry wills himself to move, mostly because he doesn't want that man to return from wherever he had wandered off to. He staggers up the hallway, trying to ignore his aching muscles, until he turns around a corner and eventually reaches Speed's infirmary. When he knocks on the door a couple of times and receives nothing but silence, he opens it to a crack and peeks inside. The room is dark and it's obvious that there is no one inside. So where _is_ everyone? Where is Pewdie? It's so unnatural to be wandering around an area without him by his side. Why had Pewdie left him on his own? Hadn't they learned their lesson the last time they separated?

Eventually, Cry deduces that the door which seems to have voices on the other side would have the people he expects to see. He stops by one with a plaque that reads _Kitchen 3_ and knocks on it softly. Despite the muffled voices inside, no one answers. After some hesitation, Cry then takes a deep breath and enters the room anyway.

The space he steps into is large and rectangular in shape, divided into two areas – something like a lounge in one end and a kitchen in the other. The kitchen seems small and cramped, with two steel refrigerators shoved into a corner, a dart board hanging on the small section of wall next to it and a cabinet full of plates. Something is cooking in a wok that's placed on one of the hobs, releasing a cloud of aromatic steam into the air which is sucked into a noisy vent above the stove. Cry spots Vegas busily berating Delta who is rolling his eyes at her as he tries to pry open a jar of picked garlic. There's a kitchen counter with some stools overlooking this kitchen area and two men sit with their backs to the room door on said stools. Cry recognises the broad back and bushy head of Speed but he doesn't know the lanky, blonde man wearing the oversized fireman's jacket beside him.

Unfortunately, Cry can't make his way to the kitchen without walking through the lounge area. He spots two people sitting on different chairs – the first being Tesla, the young girl who looks barely older than thirteen or fourteen, curled up on an armchair that faces a low coffee table. Her head is buried in the pages of some sort of notebook while she mutters something unintelligible under her breath. Again, Cry can see the pair of earphones wedged in each ear and the dirty iPod peeking out of her jeans pocket. She looks like she doesn't want to be disturbed so Cry decides to leave her to it.

The remaining occupant of the room is a man. He looks average and rather ordinary, with brown hair, blue eyes and no distinguishing features, and he sits languidly at a small, square table surrounded by chairs on either side. He is gazing at Cry right now because he had noticed him come in but had chosen not to say anything about it. Cry finds no hostility or wariness in his expression. He thinks it would be rude if he chose to walk past him without acknowledging his presence so he swallows back his unease, feeling the butterflies flutter nervously in his stomach because it's been a while since he's forced to mingle with strangers, and heads towards the man's table.

"Um," Cry says timidly, loitering around one of the table's empty chairs. "Hi."

The man gives him a polite, kind smile and gestures for him to take a seat. Somehow, that simple hand wave sends a rush of relief which eases some of the tension in Cry's shoulders. He finds himself relaxing as he sits himself on the chair.

"Um," says Cry again, trying to will away his awkwardness. He can feel the heat creep up the side of his neck, climbing onto his cheeks.

"'Cry', right?" says the man, making Cry blink in surprise. "Ha-ha, well, it was quite unexpected, having you and Pewdie turning up at this place. We were surprised when we heard the news from Delta and Vegas." There's something strange about his accent. It sounds American at first but it occasionally slips into a pronunciation that seems British.

"We didn't really have much of a choice," Cry tells him in a mumble. "We were in a tight spot."

"I understand," says the man with a nod and his eyes briefly flick onto something over his shoulder. He then asks with a light tone of politeness, as if trying to delicately point out something without appearing rude. "Are you going somewhere? It's just that you're carrying a shovel on your back."

"Uh? _Oh_. Oh yeah," Cry suddenly realises that he must look a strange sight to be wandering about the place with a shovel. "Sorry. Um, kind of a habit of mine. I don't go anywhere without it." Blushing furiously, he clumsily lifts his shovel off his shoulder and sets it on the floor.

"Speed tells me you had been wandering around town without food and water for a day," the man continues on. Despite his mediocre appearance, there is something attractive about his voice. It is soft and pleasant to hear and Cry can't help but strain his ears to listen to every syllable he forms with his lips. "I remember it had been terribly hot that day. What a struggle it must be for you both."

"We, um, actually lost our supplies two days ago," Cry ends up telling him with a sigh. "Some bandits ambushed and stole from me while I was sleeping. They held me at gunpoint but I was lucky to get away without getting shot. In the end though, we lost everything. We've been wandering through town trying to find food and water to replace our things but we found nothing so yeah, it was pretty tough." It's surprisingly easy to talk to the man because he nods in acknowledgement at him at the right points, coaxing him to continue speaking. He already feels his uneasiness ebbing away with every word he utters.

"Well, it's not that unexpected for us I'm afraid," replies the man with a slight shake of his head. "It's been like this for a while, this lack of supplies. It started when we heard that groups of survivors had begun stealing from one another. It sparked off the assumption that there wasn't enough to go around. As a response to that, that's when the extreme – you can say – _pillaging_ commenced. Small parties of scavengers were dispatched to different areas in town to collect anything and everything that can be used. Every so often, planned burglaries on other survivor camps continue to be carried out. In fact, we had one not a few weeks ago. Things like this have become pretty common these days."

"That's..." Cry says, frowning. "That's not right. It's not the right thing to do. We shouldn't steal. We should help each other instead."

"That was the general thought, yes," says the man wistfully. "It might have been that way once upon a time in the past but things have changed since then. Now, people ask: what is 'right' anymore?"

He makes a sound point. Cry thinks back to the encounter with Alistair and Jim, remembers the latter revealing their misfortune, their motives for stealing. At that time, Cry had been blinded by anger and fear to stop and think about their circumstances. Now that he is reflecting on it again, he feels a small inkling of compassion for their situation, thinks that he would have sacrificed some of his supplies to the two men if it meant helping the rest of their group members. Saving lives are the right thing to do after all.

A thought suddenly occurs to him. "Can I ask you something?" Cry says because he's been wanting to know about this for a while. "How _is_ there electricity in this town?"

"I had a feeling you might bring that up," his speaking companion replies, the ends of his lips curling upwards into a smile. "Well, if you must know, only some parts of town are receiving electricity. It comes from a low-head hydropower plant about two miles from here. That basically means our electricity is generated using the natural current of the river."

"Oh, I see," says Cry, nodding in acknowledgement. That's pretty neat, he thinks. But you probably need a bunch of people to maintain that plant in order to keep the electricity going. Meaning that there must be another survivor group living there.

"You must have travelled a long way," the man remarks with a slight tilt of his head. "How did you arrive at an isolated town like this? By car?"

"Oh, not really," Cry corrects him with a sheepish smile. "Um, we've been walking for weeks, following the river until we hit town. But we did get around with a car before that. We lost it though." Why am I telling him this? Cry wonders suddenly. I'm not even sure myself.

"Ah, yes," the man says. "Pewdie mentioned something about escaping much of the chaos of those first few weeks in a car. A Ford Fiesta, I think he said. And you two met quite by coincidence. What a fortunate thing too! Pewdie mentioned you are quite the 'zombie killer'."

Just how much had Pewdie disclosed their story to these people? Cry wonders in bewilderment. They don't really need to know. It isn't any of their business to know anything about us.

"I'm not... really that good," Cry murmurs, feeling embarrassed by the praise. "It's something that any normal person needs to get himself used to if they want to survive. I mean, it wasn't hard for me. My... my first kill, that is. But, uh–" Wait, what? "I convinced myself that I could do it. I could get used to it because I wanted to live."

"And a wise choice too," comments the man, resting his elbows casually on the table. "I have to say, our experiences are somewhat similar. I underwent that same realisation except that in my case, it had been terrifying, trying to kill something that you believe shouldn't ever exist. Unfortunately for me, my first act of zombie bloodshed had been on my own thesis supervisor."

"Oh," Cry says awkwardly. It must have been horrible to kill someone familiar to you, someone whom you were close to. Cry can't imagine how it would be like if the zombie he decapitated had any of his family members' faces – Oh god-fucking-hell, _no._ He _won't_ think about it. Not now. Not ever.

"I don't think," he finds himself saying, feeling a little sick at the thought. "I don't think I'll be able to handle something like that."

"Then you're rather lucky to have never come across friend or family who have fallen victim to this pandemic," the man says.

"I... guess I am," Cry says in realisation. "Actually, I have no idea what happened to them. I was waiting for them to come home and they never did."

"Did no one answer when you tried calling?" the man's eyebrows furrow to form a look of sympathy. "I assume that must be the general case for everyone. I actually hurried home after I couldn't get through to anyone on the phone. That was after I dealt with my supervisor. Once I got back, I couldn't find anyone at all. The place seemed abandoned. I tried looking but it was impossible to do so during that chaos. What about you? You must have been worried sick about them. Once you had enough of waiting, you must have ventured out into that chaos to look for your loved ones too?"

"I..." Cry begins, suddenly uncertain of himself. What had he been doing after he left the house? Didn't he look for help? Didn't he look to find some clue as to where his family might have fled to? "I..." No, wait. Something startling dawns in his mind, making him pause in shock.

"...Oh my god," he murmurs aloud in bewilderment. All this time, all this _fucking_ time– "I didn't even go _looking_ for them." How can that be? No, he definitely remembers having that intention back when he was travelling with George, Marilyn and Thomas. But ever since their deaths, his mind had been focused on one thing: to not look back and grieve over his mistakes, to keep going, to keep on living for as long as he can because Cry does not want to die. In the process of that, he had forgotten. He'd forgotten about what he was originally supposed to be doing. What any normal person should be doing. Why would he forget something like that? How _could_ he forget something like that?

 _You focus on one thing too much and you don't see anything else_ , a voice in his not-so-distant memory reminds him.

Holy shit, Cry, he thinks to himself. What the hell happened to you?

"I'm sorry," the gentle voice belonging to his speaking companion jerks him out of his startling thoughts. He must have been watching this realisation unfold in Cry's eyes. "I shouldn't have asked. That was awfully rude of me."

"N-no, no, i-it's okay," Cry stutters, flustered and feeling somewhat ashamed for his silence. He quickly pushes down his recent awareness about his family; tries not to let it bother him for now. Not the time, not the time, he tells himself. Not in front of other people, please. Not now. Don't think about it, don't think about it.

"I'm sorry for mentioning it," the man says to him again with a small, sympathetic smile. "But I understand what you must have gone through. You can't help it after all. Survival tends to take up a lot of space in one's thoughts."

Cry feels a tightness in his chest loosen a little from the words. Somehow, he gains some control over himself and lets out a sigh, feeling a little relieved. He's right, Cry reassures himself. Thinking about not dying really does take up a lot on his mind. He shouldn't beat himself up over it or feel guilty that he hadn't made any effort to go out and search for his family. After all, he'd been too busy trying keep himself and Pewdie alive. It was hard work. Not to mention all the shit we had to go through to get this far.

"I... also went through some pretty bad stuff," Cry finds himself saying, now eased by the reassurance. "Experiences like that, they make you forget about things too."

"'Pretty bad stuff'?" his speaking companion pauses in thought at his words.

"Yeah," Cry responds and he is seized by a sudden need to explain this further. (Wait. He doesn't have to. He's never even told Pewdie this. Why is he doing this now?) "I made some bad decisions," he continues. "Got some people killed. They were..." For a second, he recalls George and Marilyn's smiling faces and feels his heart break at their horrible fate, at what his decision had led them to. "They were good people. They didn't deserve what happened to them."

"A lot of people didn't deserve to die," agrees the man sadly. "But nowadays, one must accept that it's a common occurrence. Every day is a battle in the physical and mental sense. Personally, I think it's an admirable thing if you stop and think about it – it's interesting how it is that we find ways to keep going in highly stressful situations like this. How far we are willing to go in order to persevere and not crack under the pressure. How desperate we can get just to keep ourselves breathing for one more day. How much people can change in times of crisis."

They're silent for a while, lost in contemplative thought. In the background, Cry barely acknowledges Delta and Vegas's verbal exchange with Speed and his companion.

"There was a guy in the group I travelled with once," Cry says before he can stop himself. Naturally, his thoughts had wandered to Thomas's tragic fate. He can feel his grief for the latter's death creep back to him and pierce him like an icy thorn. Oh, Thomas, he thinks to himself. You poor bastard.

"He was the first to give up," Cry continues in a mournful tone. "He said he had a younger brother that he was looking for. No matter how many times we told him they'll see each other again soon, he wasn't convinced. He told me he didn't see the point of anything."

"Whatever happened to him?"

Cry meets the man's eyes. "He killed himself. Jumped off a ledge right in front of us. He just couldn't handle it anymore." It's the first time he talked about the death to someone else. He mentally holds back the sorrow he feels about it and focuses instead on what is going on right now.

"Hmm," the response to this is a quiet hum. But now that Cry is looking directly into the other man's eyes, he thinks he sees something peculiar there. A sort of brightness in his gaze. He doesn't know what to make of it. Is it a spark of curiosity? Of interest? Or perhaps it is only the trick of the light?

"That must have been traumatic," the man finally says in a tone of sympathy and the strange brightness in his gaze quickly disappears in a flash. His eyebrows then furrow a little to form an expression of sadness. "It's such a terrible thing to watch a fellow friend break down and perish in front of you and know that you have no power to stop it from happening. I'm so sorry for your loss."

For once, a lump forms in Cry's throat, something that hasn't happened to him in so many months. He's shocked when he opens his mouth to reply and his voice comes out unsteady, "Th-Their names... were Thomas, Marilyn and George. I... I couldn't save them."

"It's not your fault," comes the gentle reassurance. "Sometimes, we just can't save everyone. All of us have lost people. We all regret it. But that is the way of the world now. So please don't feel bad about yourself, Cry."

It's the first time that this man had addressed him directly by name and Cry finds himself being comforted by the kindness in his tone. It has been a long time since he had opened up to anyone in the last few months. In fact, he had forgotten how cathartic it is to confide his thoughts to someone else, especially the ones which he had forcefully hidden away in his mind. Why had it been so difficult to let them out? He knows better than to keep things to himself. What had he been thinking all this time? Just keep going forward and not look back? At least he's now aware that this had been a good thing – finally letting some of his repressed thoughts out to this man. (No. Wait a second, Cry. That was almost too easy. Easy isn't right. Something feels off. Because why now?)

"Thanks," it's the only thing he can offer right now. Then, when he opens his mouth to address the man, it occurs to him that he never even asked him for his name. "Uh. I'm sorry," Cry fumbles with his words, feeling ashamed of himself. This is such a stupidly embarrassing position, even for him. Had he really forgotten social etiquette? "I didn't catch your name."

The man smiles in return, forming dimples on his cheeks. "My actual name is Lewis, but everyone here likes to call me–"

"Doc," says a gravelly voice, coming from somewhere close on Cry's left side and the nearness of it makes Cry startle badly in his seat.

When he whips his head around, he finds, to his disbelief, the blonde man with the different coloured eyes sitting calmly on the chair next to him. Cry does not know how long he had been sitting there and listening in on their conversation, nor does he know how the man had slipped into the seat without him noticing it.

"Sorry to interrupt," says the newcomer without sounding sorry at all. His multi-coloured gaze is fixed on Cry. "But it's your turn in the Watch Tower."

Cry is confused for a moment. "Me?" he says uncertainly.

"No, he meant me," the man on his right side sighs. "Yes, I know it's my turn," he tells the newcomer. "And there is no need to crash into people's conversations like that, you know," he adds, his tone slightly exasperated, as if he's used to telling the other man off for something like this.

"Doc?" Cry is staring at him, trying to associate the name with the image he is expecting. "... _You're_ Doc?" Because no fucking way.

"Yes, everyone here calls me Doc," says Doc with a sheepish laugh and he is definitely not what Cry had pictured. From the way Delta and Vegas spoke about the man, Cry had expected someone impressive, someone who exerted strength and confidence, someone who could be brutal and violent and who was willing to kill anyone and anything in his way if it meant saving the people in his group. But the man he is staring at now does not seem the type because he looks too _normal,_ like any other unremarkable person you pass by on a busy street. The only things that seem captivating about him are his amiable nature and his pleasant, silvery voice.

"So you're a doctor?" Cry thinks that maybe the authority of this man must come from his previous profession.

At this, Doc lets out a chuckle. "Not even close! I'm not the medical kind of doctor. More like the academia type of doctor," he says before adding, "Actually, I'm not even a doctor _yet_."

" _Oh_ , so you were a PhD candidate," Cry exclaims in understanding, remembering that the other man had mentioned something about a thesis supervisor. "But why are you still called 'Doc' when you're not even a doctor yet?"

"You know what? Until this day, I have no clue myself," Doc says with another laugh and pushes himself out of his chair. "Anyway, I'm sorry we have to cut this short. It's been good speaking with you, Cry. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's my turn at the Watch Tower. That just basically involves me spending a couple of hours on the top floor of the Training Tower and keeping a lookout for wandering zombies."

He then takes a step closer to Cry and holds out his hand, "Make yourselves comfortable, alright?"

"Thanks," says Cry, taking the hand. He finds Doc's grip gentle on his before they shake and part ways. Once Doc leaves the table, Cry finally realises he is sitting alone with the intruder of his and Doc's conversation. He reluctantly turns to the other man and finds him still watching him.

"Uh, hi again," Cry mutters, feeling his discomfort begin to creep back into his body. Even as they're sitting next to each other like this, the other man is still much taller than him and he has to lift his chin up to meet his gaze. God, they're mesmerising, his eyes. The contrasting colours seem oddly natural on his face. Cry feels torn between wanting to stare longer and just looking away.

He thinks he sees the corner of the man's lip twitching upwards. "Yes, hello, Cry," he replies in that gravelly voice of his.

There is a brief silence which stretches on for a few seconds. Cry is beginning to assume that the man is probably waiting for him to speak first. He thinks back to their first encounter and decides to start on that.

"So you mentioned before that you can see how it is between me and my friend," he says, trying his best not to sound confrontational. "What exactly did you mean by that?"

The man doesn't answer immediately but seems to tilt his head a little, as if studying him. His posture is relaxed, his arms folded and resting leisurely on the table. Just when Cry thinks that his question isn't going to be answered, the man says, "What did you _think_ I meant?" There is a note of quiet curiosity in his voice and Cry notices something hidden in his face, in his twitch of a smile. A hint of amusement?

"I..." Cry tenses a little, suddenly regretting his decision to bring the topic up in the first place. He does not know what to say, whether he wants to reveal what he assumes are the meanings or just keep them to himself. As the man's eyes continue to bore into him, Cry soon loses the will to continue the line of conversation. In the end, he shakes his head and says, "Um, never mind. It's nothing."

Another silence stretches between them and Cry is all too aware that the ambiance with this man is significantly different from Doc's. With Doc, he felt eased in his presence, in the calm and pleasant atmosphere which he influenced. It had been so easy to talk to him. In contrast to that, this man seems different. Everything about him, especially his multi-coloured stare, is beginning to make Cry feel a little uncomfortable.

"Is there something wrong?" Cry decides to confront him about it. "You're kind of... staring at me."

He sees the other man's eyebrows rise. "I'm not staring at you," he says simply, almost with an air of innocence. "I'm _watching_ you."

Something in Cry's blood runs cold at the words, uttered so concisely like that. Again, he is perturbed by the ambiguity in them. He can't figure it out – whether this man could be harbouring feelings of suspicion, perhaps implying some sort of intention to threaten him or whether he could be saying something else. 'I'm watching you'? What does he mean by that? What is he trying to say?

This time, Cry does not dare to voice out his questions. He doesn't want to go through the same discomfort like he did the last time. Instead, he decides to ask something much more significant, mostly because he doesn't want them to lapse back into awkward silence again. "You didn't mention your name to me," he says.

The man moves his head a little, making his eyes flash in the ceiling lights again. "I'm called the Anorak."

The _what_? Cry blinks in confusion in response. It takes him a while to realise that the words that the man had just uttered to him are actually his name. Or the name that he wants to be called. He stifles the urge to laugh out loud at how comical it sounds.

"Anorak?" he says, trying not to smile.

" _The_ Anorak," the man corrects. He doesn't seem to notice the amusement that Cry is trying to hide in his face.

"You added a 'The'," Cry points out. "I've never heard of anyone doing something like that before. So everyone here actually calls you 'the Anorak'?"

"In a matter of speaking," says the Anorak.

"Why 'Anorak'?" Cry asks out of curiosity. He shoots a look at the hoodie that the other man is wearing; thinks that his choice of attire might have been the reason for it. Still, why a strange nickname though? "Is it weird for you if other people call you by your real name or something?"

"Maybe," the Anorak hums. Then, something changes in his eyes. It is as if the other man is looking at him at a different angle, in a different light. "Maybe," he says again, much more slowly this time. "Maybe it's better to become someone else instead of staying as the guy you were before. Maybe you just want to stop thinking about your old life because it doesn't belong here in this reality."

The words strike a sharp chord in Cry, seizing his full attention. Yes, he knows it. He can relate to that. It is exactly what he decided to do in the early days, beginning with the moment when he met the trio of survivors. He told them to call him 'Cry' because, like what the Anorak had said, his name and his old life didn't belong here anymore. If the Anorak had pointed this out, does this mean...?

"Maybe," the Anorak hasn't finished speaking yet. "Maybe you just want to shut everything out. Just keep moving forward and not look back. There's nothing behind you but a life that you can no longer have; a life you're too scared to remember because you can't have it back."

That sounds so much like me, Cry thinks, swallowing hard as he stares up at the blue and brown eyes. Does this mean...?

"Is that... what happened to you?" he then murmurs aloud, uncertain whether he may be stepping into sensitive ground because he knows that it is the case with him. He feels his heart pounding hard with anticipation. So far, almost everything that the Anorak had mentioned mirrored Cry's own experiences. They seem to have a lot in common than Cry had first thought.

There is a pause as the Anorak looks at him unblinkingly for a few seconds. "Well, it certainly happened to _someone,_ " he finally says and leans back into his chair. Cry is beginning to realise that the stare which the Anorak is giving him seems almost _knowing_ , as if he is expecting Cry to figure out the meaning behind it.

The stare sends Cry's mind into a frenzy. 'It certainly happened to _someone'_ seems to indicate that the person whom the Anorak had referred to is not himself but someone he knows. Who can it be? Is it any of his other teammates? Or perhaps... perhaps he is hinting at Pewdie? Can this 'someone' be Pewdie?

But it doesn't seem that likely. Pewdie had been honest and open with him during their travels. He doesn't usually keep things to himself. He even talks about his innermost thoughts with the inanimate objects he has out loud so it can't have been Pewdie. Unless. Unless, the person whom the Anorak was talking about had been– Oh, of _course._

"I see," says Cry, feeling his anger beginning to bubble inside him. "So, Pewdie told you about me, didn't he?"

For once, the Anorak looks a little perplexed by the proclamation. "Pewdie?" he says lightly. "Really? What gave you _that_ idea?"

The perplexity in the Anorak's face and voice seem genuine enough, meaning that Pewdie hadn't been involved after all. Cry hesitates, uncertain about himself. Perhaps he is overthinking it. Perhaps he blames Pewdie too much. So if it hadn't been Pewdie, then how did the Anorak _know_ these things about him? Did he overhear everything from his and Doc's conversation? No, that wasn't it. Cry clearly remembers that he and Doc never even raised the topic at all. So, how...?

Cry wants to ask him, he wants to ask him a lot of things – whether the Anorak knew who he was in the past, whether he was actually lying all along and that he knows things about Cry because of Pewdie. He even wants to ask him if the other man can read his mind, even though the idea sounds absolutely ridiculous. For some reason though, Cry cannot. He can't get himself to open his mouth and say it because there's something about the Anorak which stops him from asking. Perhaps it is because they're still strangers at this point and that he knows nothing of the other man. Perhaps he just doesn't want to, given the unsettling atmosphere between them. Perhaps it is because Cry feels perturbed by the way the Anorak stares at him with such mesmerising eyes like that.

In the end, Cry forces out a shaky and awkward, "U-um, n-nobody. I mean, nothing. Forget I said anything about Pewdie."

"Said _what_ about Pewdie?" says a familiar voice behind them, making Cry turn around in his seat.

He finds Pewdie, himself, standing behind them, wearing what Cry is sure to be Speed's shabby fireman's jacket thrown over the rest of his clothes. He looks ridiculous in it because the jacket is at least two sizes too big for him and he has to fold the sleeves up a couple of times just so that he can use his hands. Astonishingly, Pewdie's hair had been cropped short, revealing more of his now clean-shaven face. It occurs to him that Pewdie had been the man sitting next to Speed by the kitchen counter when he first came into the room. No wonder Cry wasn't able to recognise him back then – he looked different from behind after all.

Despite that, the first thing that comes into Cry's mind is: When did Pewds cut his hair? Why is he wearing that jacket? And then – Why would he do that without _me_?

"Are you talking to him about me?" Pewdie says and, to Cry's irritation, he isn't addressing him at all even though he had been the subject of Cry's utterance. Pewdie's gaze – or rather, his hard stare is directed at the Anorak instead.

"No," the Anorak replies easily with a slight turn of his head. " _He_ was talking to _me_ about _you._ Honestly, what could I _possibly_ say about you that Cry doesn't already know? Hm?"

For a second, Cry sees something flash across Pewdie's face, like a look of alarm or dread before the expression quickly darkens into one of suspicion. Pewdie glances away for a while, trying to gather his words and when he turns back to the Anorak, his eyes are steely as he grits out in a low voice, "I don't know. Maybe you should tell me."

Cry exchanges glances between Pewdie and the Anorak, surprised by the tension that exists between them. He wonders how this unexpected hostility was born in the first place. Did he miss a lot during his period of slumber?

"Hm," the Anorak hums as if considering Pewdie's suggestion. "Maybe I don't have to. In fact, I won't even bother. And, for the record, _he_ was talking to _me_ about _you,_ remember? Did you really fail to notice that fact or did you do it on purpose because of other personal reasons?"

Despite the fact that the question was not addressed to him, Cry finds himself mulling over the words anyway as if he had been the one who was asked. The first thing that comes up in his mind is that he already knows that Pewdie had done this small act on purpose. Addressing the Anorak instead of him, Cry, and not sparing him so much as a greeting could only be because he and Pewdie are still fighting, are still somewhat uneasy with one another. But whatever the case is, the Anorak must have known what is going on between them, judging from the way he had casually mentioned it in that vague manner. He _must_ have known, Cry thinks. I mean, if he didn't, then why would he say something like that anyway, right?

Cry isn't the only one who seems to think this because he catches Pewdie's quick, knowing glance at him and instinctively knows that the thought had crossed the other man's mind as well. Pewdie then turns back and sends a scrutinising glare at the Anorak, exhaling heavily and looking as if he is waiting for the other man to blurt out the rest of what he knows about him and Cry. When the Anorak doesn't answer, Pewdie says sharply, " _Well_?"

"Well, what?" asks the Anorak with a shrug, looking oblivious at whatever Pewdie is hinting at. Cry swallows back a nervous lump in his throat, recognising the same feeling of discomfort that comes whenever the Anorak asks back a question with that air of innocence.

"You going to admit it or what?" Pewdie says, his tone bitter and guarded. "Because _our_ business is not your business, so kindly piss off."

Cry is about to give his verbal support to this when the Anorak reacts, looking confused by Pewdie's warning. "' _Our_ business'?" he says blankly, making Pewdie bristle angrily in response. "Sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

Pewdie snaps his mouth shut, looking flustered and uncertain for a moment and Cry hesitates too, quickly reflecting back on his own thoughts. He thinks the Anorak's response seems genuine enough because it's the same reaction that the other man had shown him before. Perhaps he and Pewdie both formed the wrong assumption and that the Anorak doesn't know anything about the state of their relationship after all. Still, he can't help but point out how the hell could the same thought occur to him _and_ Pewdie at the same time in the first place.

In the end, Cry gives up, feeling his head hurt not just from the accumulation of frenzied, baffled thoughts but from his returning headache. He still does not know what it is that the Anorak is trying to say to either of them – whether his words had been said by coincidence or were, in fact, hiding something deeper, darker.

"What's your problem anyway?" Pewdie snaps, narrowing his eyes. He looks appalled, outraged, confused. "You're clearly trying to fuck with me."

The Anorak gives an exasperated sigh in return. "Look, if you're that curious in trying find out what we were talking about – since that was what obviously got us in this situation in the first place – why don't you ask _Cry_ the question? After all, _he_ was the one who said your name."

Cry sees Pewdie bite back a response. He is then spared from answering when Cry finally finds his voice (where the hell had it been all along?) and chooses to step in.

"I just – we weren't talking ab– I just said to forget what I... look, it was _nothing_ ," Cry is astonished that he's fumbling with his own words. He blames it on the fact that his mind can't take this anymore, can't take the fact that whatever Pewdie tries to throw at the Anorak, the other man just throws back words that continue to puzzle and perturb him further. "Just... don't worry about it," he tries to reassure Pewdie in the end. "It was nothing. We didn't talk about anything. Please don't worry about it."

"No, it's not okay," Pewdie mutters without looking at him but he seems to be talking about something different. The other man lifts his head and glares up at the Anorak's blue and brown gaze. "You're avoiding the question," he points out snappishly. "I want to know what the hell's your problem, you–"

"– _And_ I'm going to stop you there," says a deep, booming voice which shatters the tense and dangerous atmosphere between the three of them. Speed then suddenly saunters up to the table, hands buried in the pockets of his pants, still looking imposing with his wild dark hair and his thickset build even without the fireman's jacket. From Cry's sitting height, his figure looms over them all, throwing part of the table into shadow.

"You two at it again?" Speed asks and casually slings a hefty arm around Pewdie's shoulders. "Man, we leave you two alone for a couple of minutes and _already_ you're at each other's throats. Maybe we should keep you two away from each other from now on, eh? Oh, but seriously, come on, dudes. Chill out, yeah? Anorak? Pewds?"

' _Pewds'_? Cry thinks with a frown and his frenzied thoughts about the Anorak instantly vanish from his mind. Unconsciously, he shoots a sharp look at Pewdie who is too busy exchanging glares with the Anorak to notice. Since when does 'Pewdie' become 'Pewds' so damn quickly? He wonders, bothered by this.

It's a silly notion to suddenly think about – the fact that Cry seems so affected by this name usage – because he is pretty sure that Pewdie doesn't mind being called his abbreviated nickname by anyone he meets. Besides, he knows that the people who watched Pewdie's videos would have gotten used to calling him 'Pewds' anyway. Yet for some reason, Cry feels a spike of irritation towards Speed when that name had left the latter's lips. He thinks, nobody gets to call Pewds that.

He thinks, only _I_ get to call him that.

"How are you feeling, Cry?" Speed's jolly voice breaks into his thoughts and Cry shakes himself out of whatever state he's in and forces out a weak smile.

"A little better," he replies. His body still feels awfully sore and his head had started throbbing again, but there is no way he's going to tell Speed any of that.

"Great!" Speed says. "I bet you're hungry after that long sleep. You were out for a while."

Cry immediately asks, "How long _was_ I out?"

"Almost the entire day!" exclaims Speed with a wave of his free hand. His other arm is still hooked around Pewdie's shoulders and Cry wonders with a frown when he might be letting Pewdie go anytime soon.

Out loud though, Cry says, bewildered, "I was asleep for the entire day?" Because I must have been pretty fucking exhausted, he adds to himself.

Speed lets out a chuckle, "Yeah! I even had to convince Pewds to leave the room just after noon to get him to eat some grub. Took some time convincing. I mean, he wouldn't leave your side and all. He insisted that he'd wait until you woke up."

"...Oh," Cry shoots a glance at Pewdie and sees him turning his face away so that he is avoiding Cry's eyes. Despite that, Cry can see Pewdie's neck and ears slowly turn pink, probably from embarrassment. He quickly looks away himself, trying not to feel anything from this discovery.

"So, uh," Cry tries to form words in his mouth just to will away this awkwardness. "What's with the jacket and the hair anyway?" he murmurs before looking up at Speed. "Isn't the jacket yours?"

"Ahaha," Speed lets out a little laugh, finally withdrawing his arm from Pewdie's shoulders so that he can gesture towards the oversized jacket that the latter is wearing. "You see, Pewds lost at darts. So, as punishment, he gets to wear the jacket."

"It's a stupid punishment," Pewdie mutters back with a frown. "This was supposed to be exclusive to you only, Speed. Also, I was at a disadvantage. I had to go against Barbetta of all people."

"Who's Barbetta?" Cry asks, a little overwhelmed by the fact that Pewdie seems to have assimilated into this survival group so quickly after interacting with them for only a day while he slept. After all, the latter had already become eligible for punishment after participating in the group's games.

All three men look at Cry following his enquiry. After a pause, Pewdie becomes the one who answers him. "We met up with this girl, Barbetta," he begins. "She's fucking good at darts. And, well. She also took one look at my hair and said she was going to cut it, no arguments. Next thing I know, this is how I look like."

"And... you just let her?" Cry says, purposely giving Pewdie a judgemental look.

"The thing is..." Cry is a little surprised to see a blush rise on Pewdie's face. "The _thing_ is, right... She's a hard one to turn down."

"Well, that's 'Betta for you," agrees Speed beside him, accompanying his own remark with a sheepish grin. "Sometimes you can't escape when she's got that urge. It's like one of her obsessions – trying to cut things with scissors. I'm lucky enough to escape her grabby hands so far. I'm not having this glorious mane shaven off for anything."

"Oh, but one day she will," Cry recognises Vegas's high-pitched voice floating closer to their party. Sure enough, she appears by Pewdie's side, eating what looks like rice that's been moulded and rolled into a ball. A second later, a laughing Delta arrives, exchanging words with someone he has never seen before.

A young woman strolls alongside him, tall, slim and athletic, with long blonde hair that hangs down her shoulder in a single braid. Cry thinks she has the most impossible face because there is something surreal about her smoothly sculpted features – about her almond eyes and her prominent cheekbones, the bridge of her straight nose and her full pink lips. When his gaze lowers, it is instantly drawn to her chest, which has the most _magnificent_ pair of breasts he has ever seen in his life. They are adequate in size, delightfully ample and perfectly shaped, swelling softly from the front of her tank top.

There is also something majestic about the way she moves and holds herself, Cry notices. It is as if she knows what she is capable of and that she can take care of herself very well. She seems chilled and perfectly at home here. There is no animosity or curiosity or much of an expression on her face yet this cool and detached demeanour of hers merely makes her even more alluring. If Cry had to describe her in simple terms, he would have said that the girl had come straight out of a videogame, probably an Action-Adventure kind like _Tomb Raider._ She looks so fantastic that she didn't seem real at all.

Damn, Cry thinks with a gulp, entranced and so taken aback by what he sees. _Damn._

"'Betta," says Speed and juts his lips out of his bushy goatee in a pout. He is casually touching his beard and leaning away, as if trying to protect it from harm. "Friendly reminder: You're not allowed to come anywhere near me if you have scissors in your possession. Also, I know you're still carrying them after what you did to Pewdie."

Cry has to tear his gaze away from Barbetta's chest to glance at Pewdie. The other man's face is flushed red and he, too, is distracted by the woman's ample bosom like he is. Cry is beginning to understand what Pewdie meant by Barbetta being 'a hard one to turn down'.

But Barbetta isn't looking at Speed though. Her light brown eyes are directed at Cry, who is an unfamiliar face to her. Under her gaze, Cry begins to feel awfully self-conscious of himself, of his clothes and his glasses and the state of his uncombed hair. Goddammit, he should have put his cap on his head to hide the mess at least. He can feel the heat coming off his cheeks in waves the more she stares at him with her cool gaze.

It only takes a few more seconds of her scrutinising him before she announces, "I think we agree that your hair has grown too long for you. If you don't mind, I'd like to cut it." Her voice comes out quiet, her tone cool and composed like her eyes, almost to the point of sounding laidback.

Cry is speechless for a moment because he's taken aback by how abrupt and utterly irrational this proposition is. He wants to say 'no' to her at first because they barely know each other and he doesn't understand why she wants to do this – Could this be for his convenience or merely to satisfy her desire to cut hair? Moreover, Cry feels a little afraid to come close to a beauty like her without feeling like he wants to melt into the floor in embarrassment. He already knows he's going to make a fool of himself in front of her.

But then again, Cry is beginning to feel awfully foolish for sitting here with his stupid hair falling into his eyes while Barbetta stands and patiently waits for him to speak.

Eventually, his continued speechlessness makes her say, "If you're worried about whether it won't turn out good, I promise you that it will be fine, Cry."

Holy _shit_ , Cry thinks. She said his name. She said his _name_. And it sounds wonderful coming out of her lips, like a musical note, and it sends a shiver up his spine. Her voice is like silk – smooth, soft and pleasant to the ear. Oh god, Cry's face and neck are probably glowing beet red by now because he feels the squirming urge to hide them in his hands.

Finally, what comes out of his mouth is, "Uh... sure. Whatever you say."

"Good man," Vegas comments from the side. She had been watching his blushing face the whole time because she is smirking, clearly delighted by his reaction towards Barbetta. Despite their brief acquaintanceship, Cry wants to shoot a dirty look at her, mostly because he still doesn't quite like her, but decides against it in the end.

Barbetta takes no notice of Vegas's remark and instead, calmly turns her head and fishes something out of her back pocket. What comes out in her hand is a pair of scissors which Cry notices are not barber shears. The entire thing, including the handles, are made of stainless steel and the long, thin and straight blades are ones he normally doesn't see belonging to hair scissors. He stares at them, tries to figure out what they might be because he's seen this type of tool before. He just can't put his finger on it.

"Um... F.Y.I," Speed says, noticing Cry's scrutinising gaze. "Those are actually dissecting scissors. The kind you use for surgery. You know... to cut people open?"

Wait, _what?_ "Oh," says Cry aloud, uncertain of what to think of this. "I'm guessing they ran out of normal hair scissors, huh?"

"Something like that," says Speed sheepishly. "But don't worry. 'Betta's a pro at this."

"Oh, and how would _you_ know?" Vegas asks him with a mischievous glint in her eyes, sounding as if she can't help commenting on Speed's words.

"Yeah, she's never cut you before," Delta helpfully adds beside her. Figures he'd pitch in his share, Cry thinks.

"Exactly. Not even once," Vegas finishes off.

Before Speed has a chance to speak, Barbetta says, "Let's begin" and approaches the table. The sharp pair of scissors she carries glints in the light and Cry shrinks back in his chair, spluttering. "W-W-Wait, wait. Sorry, but with all due respect, you want to do this _here_? Right _now?_ " he says, flicking his gaze over the various watching faces around him. "In front of everyone?" he then murmurs in a much quieter voice.

"'Betta did Pewdie on the spot too," Delta points out, having heard him. "No one minded."

"That was because there were only three of us in the infirmary," Pewdie tells him. "And you weren't even there."

" _Nonetheless_ ," says Cry, trying to steady the nerves in his voice. "I'd prefer it if nobody was watching. Please." He particularly doesn't want the Anorak watching him while he sits vulnerably in a chair and lets someone trim his hair with dissecting scissors.

"Well, then. Let's go give him some space, boys," Vegas says, pulling Delta by the arm and reaching out to poke Speed in the ribs, making him jump. "You, too, Speedy, Anorak. Don't want to make the man uncomfortable."

Cry is almost grateful for Vegas coaxing everyone to leave, especially the Anorak, who takes one final look at him before calmly slipping out of his chair. Cry watches them all pile into the mini kitchen to fuss over whatever it is that Delta had been cooking in the wok.

Barbetta suddenly says, "So you'd like to stay and watch?"

Cry turns back to her, momentarily puzzled by her question. He then realises that she hadn't been speaking to him but to Pewdie, who hadn't moved to follow Speed and the others. The other man looks a little awkward loitering on the spot by himself with his shortened hair and oversized fireman's jacket.

"I'm..." Pewdie says, trying not to meet her cool gaze. Instead, he quickly glances at Cry. "I'll just stay with Cry... If that's okay with you."

The moment that last remark leaves Pewdie's lips, Cry instinctively knows that it is directed at him. Unexpectedly, he feels warmed and touched by this, by the fact that Pewdie is choosing to stay for his sake, by the fact that the other man had initially wanted to stay in their room until Cry woke up. So he gives Pewdie a small, grateful nod and receives a small but tight smile from him in return.

"By all means," Barbetta replies, oblivious of their secret exchange. She then gestures Pewdie to the direction of the kitchen. "I suggest you grab something to catch all the hair I'm going to cut. Or else it'll make a mess on the floor."

"R-Right," Pewdie says, giving her a nod. "I'll be right back."

As they watch Pewdie scamper towards the mini kitchen, Cry tries to be helpful and turns his chair around for Barbetta's convenience. When they fall into a pause, hearing the rest of the group's voices in the background, Cry feels like he needs to say something to break their silence.

"Um," is the first thing he says. Which is just stupid. Because _really_ , Cry? He scolds himself in his head. Is this the best you can do? Start every sentence with the awkward 'um'? Come on, man. Don't screw this up and make her think you're an idiot – which you actually are.

"So you do this often?" he eventually settles with this simple question as he timidly peers up at her. She's close enough that he can see the smattering of freckles along the bridge of her nose, the neat arched shape of her eyebrows, the single mole on the side of her neck which peeks out of her jacket collar and the impressive mounds of her breasts. (My god, they are really quite spectacular).

Barbetta shifts her gaze on him. The action reminds Cry of the movement a butterfly makes when it settles onto a flower. "I guess you mean by 'cutting hair'," Barbetta says in that same cool and smooth voice. "No, not really. But if you mean something else like using scissors in general, then yes. I do that pretty often."

"Oh," says Cry. "So, you... uh, used scissors often, you know, before all this crazy, zombie stuff happened then?" More specifically, he wonders what Barbetta used to do, whether she studied or worked or did none of the above. Maybe she did cosplaying; created her own clothes and accessories. It isn't hard to imagine her doing so with a face and body like that.

Barbetta answers him with an infinitesimal headshake, so subtle that he almost missed it. "It's actually a recent thing," she says casually. "It became sort of a hobby – you know, brushing up some of those cutting skills. You tend to do random things just to fill up the time because, believe it or not, most days are pretty boring here."

"'Boring'?" Cry echoes the word, becoming thoughtful for a moment. He's reminded of the memory of his and Pewdie's time in the endless woods, where every day they see nothing but trees and the riverside. Ah, yes, he can relate to 'boring' indeed. But still, he finds Barbetta's little 'hobby' using scissors a little odd. What exactly does she do with them all day then? Just give free haircuts? Cut paper with them? Make clothes? Or perhaps something else?

Before he has a chance to ask this, Pewdie returns to their table with a plastic shopping bag. "Heheh, it's the only thing I could get," he says sheepishly, holding the object up. "Delta recommended a bucket but Speed's idea was better. So will this do?"

"A plastic bag?" Cry says, eyeing the wrinkled thing in Pewdie's hand.

"Yes, it will do," says Barbetta, a note of approval in her otherwise nonchalant voice. She then turns her attention onto Cry's hair and lifts the scissors in her hand. The gesture makes Cry swallow nervously in response.

"I'd like Pewdie to hold the plastic bag while I'm cutting," she says, briefly glancing at Pewdie before flicking back to him again. "Please don't move, Cry. This won't take too long."

"Okay," says Cry, releasing a long and deep sigh before reaching up to take off his glasses. When he thinks about it though – waking up in a strange room, his interactions with the gentle, friendly Doc and the weird and unsettling Anorak, and now, he's sitting in a fire station in the middle of a zombie apocalypse about to get his hair cut by a pretty girl – he kind of wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

"Ready?" Barbetta asks.

Cry nods, "Let's do this."

He feels her long, cool fingers run through his hair for a second before the sound of metal blades begins squeaking and slicing near his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [...Yeah. So that happened.]
> 
> I can't help but think this chapter seems quite uneventful compared to the previous ones although I thought it is enough material for one installment at least. (Also, sometimes I think I need a break from all the Pewds/Cry interaction). This chapter and the next one had been a struggle for me, which would explain why I took so long uploading this one up. It turns out that original characters are actually pretty darn hard to write about because they don't seem to come out the way I wanted them to. So, really, what you saw there was the product of multiple revisions of the Anorak as a character. Compared to him, Doc and Barbetta were a tad easier to write about, although at this point, Barbetta might seem a little bland apart from her videogame heroine looks. But then again, we *are* seeing this through Cry and Pewds's eyes and therefore, we might be able to learn more about this survival group in the future. 
> 
> Real talk though, your thoughts on the OCs? (I'm not going to talk about them yet. *You* talk about them first.)
> 
> I noticed that there is less focus on Cry and Pewds in this chapter and it occurred to me that this aspect could be another reason as to why it took me a while to write this. Despite that, it's got to be done sometime soon anyway because there are other people to pay attention to now instead of just these two idiots. 
> 
> Originally, more was supposed to happen in this chapter. A whole lot more but I think I wasted too much time with Cry and wanted to switch to Pewds's perspective. But then Pewds's bit got too long too so I had to split this into different chapters in the end. 
> 
> I'll try hard to complete another chapter to get this next one uploaded so thank yo for being patient in advance, my lovelies. I noticed the increase in the number of Kudos and Comments (even Bookmarks) lately so I sincerely thank you for the feedback. I'm very glad and happy you're enjoying this story so far and as always, if you liked this chapter, do drop some more. They are always, always appreciated. 
> 
> To have a little peek at Chameishida's fan doodle of this story, here's a link so give her a Thanks on my behalf:
> 
> http://chameshida.tumblr.com/post/76339567047/shovel-all-the-zombies-dont-ask


	15. Chapter 15

**15.**

"Oh, you're already up," Speed says when he knocks on the door and Pewdie gives him permission to come in. The light of the hallway spills into the darkness of the room, making Pewdie squint a little. He quickly stashes Map and Torchy under his bed sheets and gives the other man a smile.

"Yeah, I'm up," Pewdie confirms. In fact, he'd been up for hours since dawn and he'd taken the liberty to shower and shave himself when he found the toiletry bags in the drawers inside the wardrobe. He'd placed an extra one on the desk for Cry to use once he wakes up.

"And you cleaned yourself up already," Speed looks satisfied despite the light streaming in from behind him, illuminating only a fraction of his face. Pewdie notices that he is not wearing that shabby fireman's jacket today. "So, you hungry?" Speed asks. "Want to come out and get something to eat?"

"Uh..." Pewdie glances up at the bunk above him. He can't see Cry's sleeping form but he knows that the other man is still fast asleep and that he'd  rather not wake him up. Still, Pewdie can't deny the fact that he's starving and Speed's offer of food is tempting. But then again, there's Cry. He doesn't want to leave Cry behind. They should stay together.

"You could wake him up," Speed suggests quietly, noticing Pewdie's gaze on the occupied top bunk. Yes, Pewdie thinks. He _could_ do that but–

"I think I should let him rest, you know?" Pewdie gives the answer almost feebly. "I mean, he needs a lot of that right now." And after everything we've gone through, he deserves that much. I don't want to force him to wake up if it doesn't involve a dangerous crisis.

"Okay but, you know, what about _you_?" Speed asks with an emphatic quirk of his bushy eyebrow. "You need food too. And Delta and Vegas are sort of wandering where you two are."

"They are?" Pewdie says, puzzled.

"Yeah. I mean, they're the ones who picked you guys up. Like a couple of strays. Delta's pretty eager to feed you, you know. He's doing the cooking for us these days."

"Huh, okay," says Pewdie with a shrug. The prospect of a cooked meal and an eager chef is always a plus for him. But still. _Cry_.

"What if I brought my food here?" Pewdie suggests. "You know. So I don't have to leave the room? If you don't mind, that is."

The corners of Speed's lips curl into a smile of understanding. "You don't want to leave him, do you?" It's obvious who Speed is referring to and Pewdie tries to hold back a wave of embarrassment at being so easily read by someone else. He gives Speed a small, timid nod.

"I get it," says Speed, his voice gentle and reassuring. "But I give you my word that there's really nothing to worry about. We're pretty safe and secure here. I know it's still early days to go around trusting complete strangers and all but at the end of the day, we're all in the same boat. We're just a bunch of people trying to stay alive. And anyway, if you want to look after your buddy, you've got to look after yourself too."

He makes a good point, Pewdie thinks. I don't know if this could be a trap or not but either way, I need to keep my guard up.

"Also, one more thing," Speed adds, scratching the back of his shaggy head. "You know when you mentioned about wanting to eat in here earlier? Ah, well, you see, Vegas, she was the one who sent me down here to pick you guys up. Heheh. That's really why I came here in the first place. She doesn't like it if we don't eat in the same place together. I mean, the last time I snuck off to my room with some of Delta's dumplings, she forced me to give them all up or she'd shoot me in the stomach."

She'd _what_? Pewdie bristles at the tale, alarmed by Vegas's dangerous intention. This isn't the first time that Speed had mentioned Vegas threatening him with a gun. Between the options of having to wait for Cry to wake up and going out to eat some food, he thinks it's wise to go along with the latter if it means avoiding Vegas's wrath in spite of their brief acquaintanceship. He has a feeling that Vegas still holds some feeling of wariness towards him and Cry.

He realises he hasn't moved or spoken for almost a minute because Speed gives a little sigh and pulls out a small stack of post-it notes along with a pen and presses them into Pewdie's hands. Pewdie stares at the items in surprise.

"Leave him a note," Speed suggests with a smile, trying to sound reassuring. "Tell him not to worry. There's also a couple of toil– Oh hey, you found those toiletry bags already. Nice. Actually – here. Give me one of those post-its. I'm gonna leave a note for Cry as well."

When Pewdie sticks his post-it note on the bunk bed, Speed squints at his handwriting. "' _Pewds'_?" he reads, giving him an enquiring look. "'Pewdie' to 'Pewds', eh? Hm, sounds cool."

The moment Pewdie steps out of the room to follow Speed up the hallway, he's instantly aware of the absence of Cry by his side. He stops for a moment, glancing back at the room they just left and feels a small stab of guilt in his chest for leaving Cry on his own like this. For one second, Pewdie hesitates, unable to decide whether to keep following Speed or reject his offer and stay instead.

"He'll be fine," Speed reassures him again as he gently nudges him on the arm. "I promise you that. Scout's honour. Or nurse's honour because I've never been a scout. He'll know where to find us once he wakes up."

Eventually, Pewdie concedes defeat. He thinks that going with Speed will let him examine this place in more detail, let him meet everyone else and assess whether or not they may be a threat. He thinks, if something looks wrong, I'm going back to get Cry.

He isn't aware that he is so buried in his thoughts while blindly trailing after Speed until the latter suddenly stops in front of the infirmary, causing Pewdie to bump into his back. "What's wrong?" Pewdie instantly asks, retreating and tensing in alarm due to the abruptness of the action.

"Hang on, hang on," Speed says, sounding embarrassed. "Sorry, I forgot that I have to pick something up for 'Betta in here." He opens the infirmary door and he and Pewdie both startle at the same time when they find a solid shadow standing on the other side of that door, its hand also reaching out for the doorknob.

Holy–! Pewdie thinks, trying to slow down his fast-beating heart. _Goddammit._ That fucking scared me!

"...I will have a heart attack one of these days," Speed mutters beside him and like Pewdie, he is drawing deep breaths to calm himself down. "Seriously, my death won't be because of zombies but because other people are trying to make me jump out of my bones."

"If it's any consolation, I wasn't trying to make you jump," says an attractively cool feminine voice as the shadow steps out to the hall to join them, revealing itself to be a young woman. "I was only picking up those keys I asked you for."

Pewdie's eyes widen in awe at her appearance. His first thought is that he is looking at a videogame character who had just come out of an LED screen, ready to kill zombies. She certainly has the look and the outfit – and her _face_. Her face doesn't look humanly natural, like a face that is meticulously built up by highly defined CGI pixels. Her movements are fluid, graceful, like she is floating rather than walking towards them. Her voice is soft, smooth and a little emotionless but despite that, it seems to suit her, compliment her overall appearance. Apart from her face though, Pewdie is uncontrollably drawn to her particularly impressive buxom chest. He finds himself struggling not to stare openly at them (because they're right _there_ for god's sake. Don't be rude, Pewds. Don't look at them). He is sure he has never seen anything like her in his life except perhaps from a computer monitor.

"Yes but _still_ ," he half-hears Speed say firmly, waving an emphatic hand about while Pewdie continues to study the woman's braided hair, her unbelievably gorgeous face and her impressive chest. "It doesn't change the fact that you scared the living hell out of me," Speed emphasizes.

 _And_ me too, Pewdie adds to himself because – in spite of the woman's looks, jump-scares just suck in general.

The girl doesn't respond to Speed's complaints but shifts her gaze onto Pewdie instead. Her eyes, he notices, are a light-brown, complimenting her blonde locks. When he sees her studying him, she is doing so with a calm and cool air with nothing to show in her expression and nothing that can give her emotions away. Pewdie shuffles uncomfortably for a second. He doesn't know what to say to her. Should he introduce himself? Maybe he should. It's the least he can do.

"H-Hey, how's it going?" his words come out a little stiffly and awkward so he quickly clears his throat and tries again. "Uh, my name is Pewdie."

"Yes, I know," the girl replies nonchalantly with a small nod. "The others told us you arrived last night." And then, she says quite unexpectedly, "You need a haircut."

"...What?" Pewdie says, blinking. A haircut? Did she just say 'haircut'? What's wrong with his hair? Is it that bad? Does he look silly? Does _she_ think he looks silly? That's not okay. Pewdie feels his face begin to heat up as the stream of thoughts assaults his mind.

"Barbetta," Speed groans, stepping in and puts a hand on Pewdie's shoulder. "Don't you think it's a little early for that?" He sounds exasperated as he gives her a look.

But the girl, Barbetta (what a strange name but it somehow suits her. Then again, everything about her just _suits_ her), takes no notice of Speed's comment and pulls out a pair of scissors that Pewdie recognises are not barber shears. "I'll gladly do your hair for you if you don't mind, Pewdie," she simply says.

Pewdie is alarmed by the casual extraction of those scissors, by the way the metal blades are glinting in the light and an icy spike of fear grips him for a moment. When he takes an unconscious step back, Speed immediately jumps in between him and Barbetta and holds a hand up to stop the latter from coming any closer.

"Wait, wait, wait," he says. "Look 'Betta, if you want to do your thing, don't – don't embarrass the guy by doing it out here. Actually, you don't need to do it at _all_. You know that he's new so don't scare him like this. You get what I'm saying? Try to control yourself a little."

Wait, what? 'Try to control yourself a little'? Pewdie gulps, feeling anxious butterflies flutter in his stomach. What does Speed mean by that? What on earth is Barbetta going to do to him with those scissors? Could this lovely face be hiding a dark and disturbing intention involving himself?

From over Speed's shoulder, Pewdie sees something change in Barbetta's expression. Pewdie thinks that the faint twinkle in her eye seems a little playful. She then lifts the scissors so that they are levelled with Speed's gaze and makes a show of snipping it twice in her hand. As the squeaking, slicing sounds echo up and down the empty hallway, Pewdie actually hears Speed emit an audible gulp. Is she giving him a message? A warning, perhaps, for him to not get in her way?

"Heheheh... ah..." Speed releases a sheepish laugh, motioning towards the door of the infirmary. "Fine. Suit yourself. Here, feel free to use the infirmary. And please don't do anything weird to him."

When Speed pushes him into the infirmary after Barbetta, Pewdie twists his head around to stare at him in alarm. "Wait a second," he says and he can hear the panic in his own voice. "What are you – what is she going to do to me?"

Speed gives him an encouraging smile in return. "She's only going to give you a haircut," he explains with an apologetic tone, squeezing Pewdie's shoulder. "Sorry about this. No one escapes 'Betta at the Fire House... Well, no one except me, that is. I try to stay out of her way most of the time. Just do whatever she tells you, okay?" He notices that Speed is touching his beard when he says this, looking as if he is trying to shield it from Barbetta's gaze. The other man flicks on the lights of the room, closes the door and locks it behind him.

"Hey, how come _you_ are an exception?" Pewdie points out and then, a sudden thought strikes him. He glances between Speed and Barbetta, who is busy pulling Speed's swivel chair out from behind the desk. " _Oh,"_ he says, eyes widening even more."Are you two...?"

Speed immediately splutters, "Holy crap, _no_! We're not like that. We just have an agreement. We have competitions. You know, at darts and snooker and table soccer and stuff. We got a lot of these challenges when things get a little too boring here. Which is _most_ of the time. If I beat her, she doesn't get to touch a hair on my head."

"Didn't you... lose the last time?" Pewdie hesitantly asks, remembering Vegas and Delta's words the night before.

Speed lets out a sheepish sigh, "Okay, _yes._ I _did_ lose. In fact, I lose most of the time but somehow, despite that, 'Betta hasn't tried to shave me so far. I don't know why that is and I don't really care. Maybe she just likes playing against me and watching me lose. It's weird, I know, but the important thing is, at the end of the day, I still get to keep my beard."

"Good for you," Pewdie comments, trying not to let his wince show out of his forced smile. Note to self, he thinks. Barbetta is gorgeous _and_ a little strange but for some crazy fucking reason, that suits her too.

"Will you please sit down?" Barbetta says, pushing Speed's chair forward and motioning for him to take a seat. She then hands Speed a small wastepaper basket and a wordless look.

"Yeah, I know," Speed sighs, taking the item from her. When Pewdie sits down, he feels awkward and awfully vulnerable in the chair, having Barbetta hovering behind him and Speed standing with the basket in his hands in front of him. For the first time, he feels unsure of his own decision. For the first time, he feels a little alone and wishes that Cry is here with him.

"So let me get this straight," says Pewdie in an unsteady voice. "You're going to cut my hair right now?"

"Yes," comes Barbetta's reply, delivered in a matter-of-factly tone which leaves no objections, no arguments.

Okay, so am I the only one who thinks this is just _weird_? Pewdie wonders, trying not to shrink into his seat as these two people close in on him, ready to tend to his hair. It's funny how he's nervous and a little uneasy about this. Compared to the frightening things which exist beyond the walls of the Fire House, this haircutting session shouldn't be something to worry about. It's just that it has been such a long time since anything _normal_ happened to him, really.

The next ten minutes are a little bizarre for him and strangely enough, he barely remembers much of it except for some notable details – the feel of Barbetta's fingers lightly tugging on his hair, the sound of scissors slicing close to his ear, the sight of his blonde locks falling down and there's Speed's booming voice moving from one side to another, trying to keep up with Barbetta's pace as he catches Pewdie's cut hair with the wastepaper basket.

Sometimes Speed talks to Barbetta and sometimes he's addressing Pewdie but Pewdie can barely keep up with the other man's chatter. He's a little distracted by Barbetta's presence and the fact that she is standing so close to him, that he can feel the warmth of her body, catch a whiff of her natural alluring scent, feel the occasional brush of her braid against his shoulder. He even freezes a little, not daring to breathe for a moment, when she leans over to snip at the tufts of hair on the top of his head and he's fortunate enough to be provided with a view of her ample bosom so near to his eyes.

Barbetta finally finishes a few minutes later and steps back from him to inspect her work. When Pewdie emerges from the seat, he feels a little like a diver who had just come out of the ocean, because he finds himself taking long, deep breaths of air and his head seems strangely light. It feels a little odd having the back of his neck exposed now that the hair that used to cover it had been shorn off.

"Whoa, you okay, Pewds?" is the first thing Speed says when he steps beside Barbetta to study him. "You're looking a little red in the face there."

"Uh..." Shit, that would be because of Barbetta, Pewdie thinks. He can feel his already flushed face heat up even more under their gazes after being pointed out. "Yeah, I'm fine," he supplies, his voice close to a nervous whimper. That was definitely the weirdest thing to ever happen to me, he adds to himself as he tries to will away the blush on his face and on his ears and his neck. I'm not letting that happen ever again.

The doorknob gives a noisy rattle behind them, all before someone begins pounding on the door. "I know ya'll are in there," Pewdie hears the familiar high-pitched voice belonging to Vegas. "Trying to stop us from coming in, are you? You don't open this thing in two seconds, I'mma blast this bitch down."

Speed's expression changes into something that looks close to impatience and he gives an exasperated sigh before walking over to the door. The moment he unlocks it, he utters a curse and jumps back when the door comes flying open, revealing Vegas and Delta on the other side.

"Ha, you've been hiding in here all along," Vegas says triumphantly, narrowing her eyes at Speed. "What have you boys been up to?" She then notices that Barbetta is present in the room with them and instantly flicks her gaze over at Pewdie, noticing his shortened hair. "Ohhh, I see. You finished the show without us then?"

"What show? There _was_ no show," Speed yelps at her before motioning towards the open door which had almost crashed into him. "And this! What did I tell you about my door?"

"But we _knocked_ ," Delta points out, peering over Vegas's shoulder and he really needn't to because he is considerably much taller than her. "That's what you wanted, right? That we knock on the door?"

"Yeah and you didn't mention anything about how to correctly open one," Vegas adds accusingly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I swear, you two," Speed is shaking his head and then he's playfully punching Delta on the shoulder hard enough to make the other man cringe. "You're like a pair of bratty kids. If it wasn't you trying to scare me half to death, it's you trying to take my face off with a goddamn door."

"How are we supposed to know that you were there?" Vegas says in a tone of innocence although the sneering quality of her smile betrays her voice.

"We didn't see you," says Delta.

"We actually thought the door was jammed or something," Vegas explains.

"But it turned out it was locked."

"Yeah, and you don't usually lock the door."

"Tried pushing the thing open."

"And we had no idea that you were standing on the other side."

"So it's not our fault that the door nearly hit you."

"Didn't I mention that I _will_ lock the door from now on last night?" Speed reminds them, his mouth twisting into a pouting frown. "Oh, yes you remember. Don't pretend that you didn't. You clearly heard me."

"Are they..." Pewdie can't help but ask Barbetta, who is also watching this three-way interaction unfold in front of them. It's a little different from the interaction that Pewdie saw the night before. "Are they always like this every day?"

"Sometimes," Barbetta answers coolly. "Might as well get used to it."

Eventually, Vegas claps her hands sharply, halting all forms of talking, and points at the door behind her. "Let's just take this to the kitchen," she suggests. "We can't let Pewdie stand here and starve."

"Wha–?" Pewdie utters, flustered in the face, and then finds himself being ushered once more by Speed out of the infirmary and down the hallway. Glancing back, he finds the rest of the group strolling behind him and feels as if he is being swept by a powerful tide, unable to stop except to flow wherever the wave is pushing him towards. After a short journey that takes him further down that hallway, their small group of five stop by a set of doors and spill into a room that's labelled with the plaque, _Kitchen 3_. Pewdie catches a glimpse of a lounge area before he and the others squeeze themselves into a small, cramped kitchen tucked in the corner. On top of the kitchen counter is a plastic tray filled with small white blobs, sitting there like large marshmallows. Wisps of steam lazily curl up from the blobs and Pewdie catches a whiff of flour and the scent of something sweet.

" _Pau_!" Speed says delightedly, reaching over the tray and letting his hand hover over the food items. His face then falls into one of suspicion and dread. "Wait. Please tell me that there's chicken filling in any of these."

"Red bean," Delta reveals indifferently, picking one up and lightly tossing it to Pewdie, who clumsily catches it in his hand. "Take a seat, Pewdie," he adds invitingly, pointing to a stool that's tucked behind the kitchen counter and Pewdie tentatively settles on it before examining his _pau._ It's warm and feels soft and a little rubbery. He takes a tiny, cautious bite of it and finds it tasteless and spongy at first, like bread, but when he takes another larger bite, his mouth is instantly filled with the warm, sweet flavour of red bean paste. It doesn't taste so bad actually, he thinks before he takes another mouthful.

"I'm telling you, D," Speed is saying to Delta, sounding unimpressed. "This is the third batch of food that you put red bean paste in. Don't you think we might be getting tired of eating it?"

"Well, we have two giant tubs of the stuff," Delta points out with a roll of his eyes. "If I don't use them up, they might go bad."

"Here we go again," Vegas mutters, taking a _pau_ from the tray and immediately begins gossiping with Barbetta about something Pewdie can't discern.

Once the various conversations start, it doesn't stop. Pewdie dazedly watches the four people continue to interact with each other without paying much attention to him and feels increasingly left out. Specifically, he feels that sense of alienation one gets when they're introduced to a group of people whom they barely know but with members who are already familiar with each another. He awkwardly hangs back and focuses instead on finishing off the rest of his _pau_ in subdued silence. He's aware that the stool next to him feels eerily empty, that the familiar presence that is always by his side is so prominently absent. He lets out a small but disguised sigh. He wishes that Cry is here with him.

"Don't mind me," the stool that Pewdie had been staring at for a couple of seconds suddenly becomes occupied by another body. When he raises his head, he sees a man around the same age as Speed with brown hair and blue eyes and an average-looking face reach over to pick up one of Delta's _pau._ Surprised, Pewdie gives him a small, polite smile, "Uh, hi."

"Hello," says the man pleasantly, smiling back and for some reason, Pewdie feels something uncurl in his chest, making him relax. "You must be Pewdie, am I right? Speed told me. Your friend couldn't come and join us?"

"He's resting," Pewdie supplies, although he kind of wishes he'd woken Cry up anyway even when there isn't a crisis at hand.

"I'm Lewis," the man introduces himself and holds out his hand for him to take. "But everyone here prefers to call me 'Doc'."

 _Doc?_ Pewdie blinks incredulously when he automatically takes the hand and shakes it. He then studies the man, hardly believing his words because he is not what Pewdie is expecting. Is he really the leader of this group of rather young survivors? "Doc," he says, letting the name roll off his tongue. "So... you're the one who's in charge of this place?"

"In charge?" Surprisingly, Doc looks amused by the words. He then gives a little chuckle, "That's a nice thought, but no actually. I'm not 'in charge' of anything. At least, I don't _see_ myself as that. I personally believe that I won't be much of a good leader. Funnily enough, the others tend to come to me a lot for advice and instructions. You could say they treat me like a leader but really, I'm just like everyone else. I hope that answers your question?"

There's something British about his accent, Pewdie notices as he nods his acknowledgement. His gentle voice is also pleasant and quite captivating to listen to.

"Forgive me, but I can't help noticing that you seem a little... _overwhelmed_ by the size of our group," Doc says with a humble air of politeness and Pewdie flushes when he realises that his expression must have been obvious on his face. Doc then indicates with a motion of his head to the others, who are still deep in conversation with each other. "Please excuse them if it seems as if they are neglecting you. I think they're just secretly shy. You just arrived after all. Eventually, they will naturally accommodate to you and your friend being here. But I take it that it has been quite a while since you'd come across a group of people as large as ours?"

"No, it's just been the two of us. Just me and my friend," Pewdie corrects easily. "Actually, I haven't come across anybody living since it all started. We thought we were the last people left who haven't been eaten or turned into zombies. We've been really, really lucky so far."

"Well, you _and_ your friend seem quite a fortunate pair," Doc says. "And you must be have gone through a lot to make it this far after all."

"Yeah, we did," Pewdie says and when he thinks of Cry and the kind of things he'd experienced – being trapped in a wrecked car, getting attacked by a zombie in the abandoned house, being held at gunpoint – he adds, "Cry – my friend, Cry – _he's_ gone through a lot more than me. I mean, I ran away from those first few weeks in a Ford Fiesta and pretty much avoided civilisation. He was the one who had to endure all that crazy stuff. We met by weird coincidence. I was trapped in a storeroom and he was outside, you know, being a badass zombie killer." Following his words, he feels a sense of compassion and appreciation for Cry, for what he had to experience, for the things he had to endure. Compared to himself, Cry is worth so much more.

"Oh? But then, how did you get trapped in a storeroom in the first place?" Doc asks curiously.

"Well," says Pewdie thoughtfully, pausing for a while to decide on how much he should tell this man about his story. Ultimately, he ends up telling Doc a lot of things – about how he wasn't supposed to be here in the first place because he'd missed his plane back to Europe, how he'd checked into a hotel and received a phone call from a mysterious man next door who warned him to escape the city while he can, how he'd driven for weeks until he and Cry found each other at the gas station. It's surprisingly easy to say all this out loud and he feels a confidence grow in him with each word he utters. Soon, Doc isn't the only one who is listening to his story.

"That's one hell of a lucky coincidence," Speed comments, sounding awed and impressed by the tale. He and Delta had abandoned their bickering for a moment to listen and Pewdie has a feeling that Vegas is eavesdropping as well, judging by the way she is angling her head at his direction. It's difficult to decide whether Barbetta is listening in or not because her face remains blank as she tears strips of her _pau_ and slips them into her mouth.

"Far too lucky," Delta follows up to Speed's comment as well. "What are the chances of running into someone you know in the middle of a zombie apocalypse?" A second later, he suddenly delivers a slap onto the back of Speed's hand for the other man had been trying to discreetly pick at his teeth. "Oh come on, man," Delta scolds in a suspiciously motherly tone. "That's disgusting. Not to mention _rude_."

"I don't like how the red bean paste sticks in my mouth," Speed whines with a frown. "It's like peanut butter and I hate peanut butter."

"You're just against red bean in general," Delta mutters before he averts his attention onto Pewdie and Doc. "Okay, Doc. Tell me the truth. Red bean is better than any other filling any day, right?" Pewdie suddenly feels an urge to laugh at the fact that Speed and Delta are resuming this ridiculous issue again.

"You only think that because you love the stuff," Speed remarks, looking unhappy that he is being dismissed so quickly like this. He flicks his pleading gaze onto Pewdie, "Don't listen to anything he says, Pewds. He just wants to demean me and my choices."

"I question your choices, Speedy," Vegas decides it's time to join the conversation and is stepping closer to their counter, this time tearing a portion of _pau_ with her teeth. Barbetta hangs back, watching the rest of them with a cool and calm eye.

"What's wrong with my choices?" Speed asks, looking and sounding perplexed. "Also, _not_ Speedy, V. _Just_ Speed."

"You love Asian food," drawls a new male voice from somewhere behind Pewdie. For one mad second, Pewdie thinks that it is Cry because the voice is gravelly in nature. However, when he turns around, he sees an unfamiliar man sauntering up to the counter to join their circle. He is tall and lean in body, with short blonde hair and a nose with a bent bridge. Pewdie is taken aback when he realises that the other man's eyes are different in colour because one of them is brown while the other is blue. They look strangely natural on his pale face and seem to flash whenever he turns his head. Right now, the man is fixing Speed with a deeply scrutinising look. "Do you know that you eat way more Asian food than any other average white American male?" he says in that same matter-of-factly tone.

But something in the man's voice, in the way he had spoken those words sounds accusatory in Pewdie's ears and he feels a stab of something unpleasant in his gut. His eyebrows furrow a little at the remark.

"I just prefer eating a plate of rice rather than an old-fashioned hamburger," Speed tries to explain and, unlike Pewdie, he doesn't seem bothered by the other man's words. "I come away feeling full and satisfied."

"But you eat rice three times a day," Delta points out. "I only do that at home with the family and that's because it's impossible to escape my grandmother's cooking."

"Why is this suddenly about my eating habits?" Speed moans before he turns and sends Pewdie another pleading look. "Hey, Pewds. You don't think my choices are weird, do you?"

"Uh..." Pewdie can feel his face begin to heat up when several pairs of eyes shift onto him, including the ones from the newcomer. He feels an urge to reach out for Cry and realises that the latter isn't even in the same room with him. He swallows back his anxiety and says in a tone of politeness, "I think people should just eat whatever they want..." It's not his best opinion on the matter but it is certainly better than saying nothing.

"There you go," says Speed, sounding satisfied by Pewdie's comment and sends a smug look towards the rest of the group. Pewdie catches a glimpse of Delta and Vegas rolling their eyes simultaneously in response.

Unlike them, the man with the different coloured eyes doesn't take notice of Speed's words but cocks his head to the side instead, as if trying to see Pewdie at a better angle. His gaze, Pewdie realises, is intense and penetrating, although it's possible that it is the man's mismatched eyes that are making his stare seem so discomforting. A second later, the man begins to speak in that same gravelly voice of his. "You must think it unfair that you're stuck here in a zombie apocalypse in America with the rest of us," he tells Pewdie.

"I..." For a moment, Pewdie is _stunned_ , not by the man's words but by the effect in which they bring. The whole thing wasn't uttered like an assumption that was put forward for Pewdie to confirm, it was uttered like a straightforward statement which tells the truth about him. And it _is_ true. Sometimes, when he and Cry travelled night and day, Pewdie wishes he'd been a lot more punctual, wishes he'd booked a plane ticket a day earlier to leave the country, wishes he'd called home before it all went to shit and asked after everyone and told them that he loves them, wishes a lot of things. He thinks this isn't _fair_. He isn't supposed to _be_ here in America right now. This incident doesn't have anything to do with him. Why am I caught up in this deep shit anyway?

The fact that this man seems to have guessed Pewdie's innermost thoughts towards his unfortunate situation leaves him stunned for a moment. How does he know? Pewdie thinks frantically. I didn't mention any of this to Doc or anyone else. Not even Cry. Did this guy just anticipate my thoughts? Guess my thoughts? How does he know? Just who does he think he _is_? And why does he sound like that? Like he's... like he's – I don't _know_.

It isn't long before he recovers from his brief shock and narrows his eyes very slightly at the other man in suspicion. "I didn't mention anything like that," he points out and there's a hard edge in his voice.

"But you _did_ say you were supposed to fly out of the country," says the man emphatically. Wait. When did he hear that? Pewdie thinks. Had he been listening in on him too? If so, how? He wasn't there when I was talking to Doc. Or was he?

"It's kind of a shame though," the man continues. "If you'd arrived a little earlier at the airport and caught the plane you were meant to be on, you could have escaped all of this."

Something in his voice, not in his words for the actual words themselves are harmless, stirs a mixture of emotions in Pewdie's chest – the feeling of insecurity, of uncertainty, of confusion, of irritation and it makes him grind his teeth. The way this man had said the words to him – so casually and yet to Pewdie's ears, they sound almost reproachful, almost condescending, almost _knowing_ – brings the feeling of defensiveness into his chest, something that hasn't happened to him since he'd reunited with Cry all those months ago. He doesn't understand why he feels this way, why this _man_ makes him feel this way. It's just that he _does._

"Sorry, what are you trying to say to me exactly?" Pewdie grits out, trying to hold back his growing anger. "That it's my own fault for missing my plane or something?" because that is the impression that Pewdie is getting from this man's voice.

The man, in turn, moves his head a little, causing his blue and brown eyes to flash. "What makes you think that?" he asks with an air of innocence.

"I don't know," Pewdie answers, his voice biting in tenor. " _You_ tell me."

The other man gives him what Pewdie is very sure to be a look of mock-pity. "Maybe you're thinking a little too deeply into this," he says, sighing in exasperation. "After all, we were only talking about you being in the wrong place at the wrong time – it's something that happens to everyone."

Pewdie bristles at this remark and he's working his jaw, trying to keep it shut lest it blurts out a stream of curses at the other man. Something in him suggests he should just let this matter go because it's only a trivial thing. He isn't here to pick fights with anyone after all. Pewdie takes a deep breath and forces himself to calm down.

There is a brief, awkward silence and Pewdie isn't even aware that the rest of the group are staring at them in mild surprise, having felt the tension between himself and this newcomer to their circle. Then, Delta says in a rather pathetic attempt to change the topic and the uncomfortable atmosphere, "So... your friend, Cry. He sure is taking his time, isn't he? Sleeping in so late like this. He must be really, really tired after last night, eh? I mean, I'd sleep in too but if I was at home, my mum would set the dogs on me if I did that. You wouldn't like waking up with a pool of dog drool on your face."

Okay, I really didn't need to know that, Pewdie thinks, trying not to wince at the tale, having had experienced it some time in his previous life. He is also aware that everyone is waiting for him to say something so he decides to choose his next words carefully. It would be best not to let anyone know about his and Cry's recent dispute. "Well, it was a tough day yesterday," he simply says. "No food, no water, just the sun and zombies everywhere. I mean, you can imagine just how difficult it was for the both of us to keep it together."

It's a reasonable answer – not too vague and not too detailed – and Pewdie manages to catch the flash of sympathy in Doc, Speed and Delta's faces. Vegas seems determined to keep her face blank, as if she doesn't want Pewdie to guess her thoughts, and Barbetta's expression remains cool although the crease in her eyebrows indicates something close to an expression of understanding. Meanwhile, the newcomer of their circle slips his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie and emits an audible hum.

"I see," he says in a matter-of-factly tone. "Of course, it can be pretty challenging, having to travel with the same person for a long time. Just the two of you against the world. You can't help but run into some complications on the way." For a second, his eyes flicker somewhere – Pewdie thinks it might be directed at some of his team mates, probably at Delta and Vegas – but then his multi-coloured gaze quickly settles back on him, making Pewdie tense under that stare. "Even when you tell yourself that you can tolerate them," the man continues. "Deep down, you know that they frustrate you."

 _What_? Pewdie stares at the man in outrage, feeling a chill run up his spine when he thinks he recognises the words. His _own_ words. Just how–? Could he–? Could he _possibly_ be listening in on him speaking to Map last night? No, it was impossible. _Impossible._ Just who _is_ this man? What the fuck is he trying to imply? 'It can be challenging, having to travel with the same person for a long time'? Is he trying to say something about Cry? Does he know that he and Cry are fighting? Is it possible that Speed, Delta and Vegas, the only three people whom Pewdie has a hunch could know about him and Cry, may have told the rest of their group about them? Pewdie doesn't know what to think anymore. What he does know is that this _asshole_ right here had no right to bring it up in this manner.

"What did you just say?" he demands in a growl, feeling something hot rising in his chest. A rush of anger and irritation and something else which he's surprised to have when he recognises it – a feeling of fierce protectiveness for Cry.

"Don't get so testy," the man says with a sigh of exasperation, having noticed Pewdie's growing fury. "This is common sense after all."

"Listen, you. Cry is _not_ –" Pewdie was going to use the word 'challenging' but instantly stops because his rational mind had just caught up with him and he realises that what this man had said is a little bit true to some extent. Travelling with Cry does have its ups and downs and it _is_ challenging, having just them against the rest of this zombie land. Perhaps the man's last statement is simply referred to in the general sense. Perhaps Pewdie is overthinking it, treating this like a personal issue. Yet, what is it about this man that just makes it sound as if that is so? That it is about _him_ , Pewdie? Could this man possibly have a personal vendetta against him because he knew him from the past as the Youtube Let's Player, Pewdiepie? He frowns, unable to find the answer.

"Look, man," Pewdie tries the diplomatic approach this time. "We just met, okay? We don't know each other. You know anything about Cry so don't you mention shit about him. You probably recognise me from Youtube or something but whatever it is, you should stop saying things as if you already know me and then you're judging me for it."

He sees the man's eyebrows rise. "Judging you?" he says, a tad bit scornfully. " _Please_. Don't flatter yourself. You heard my words. I never mentioned anything about your celebrity status nor does this have anything to do with it. I also never even mentioned your friend's _name_. Maybe you _are_ thinking too much on really trivial things, Pewdie."

Pewdie snaps his mouth shut, realising that the claims are indeed true. There was never a mention of anything like that at all. He can feel the squirm of dissatisfaction in his stomach at this verbal exchange of theirs. His anger for this man continues to boil as he glares back at those penetrating blue and brown eyes.

Then, Speed clears his throat loudly, shattering the brief, tensed silence between them again, and says, "Uh, hey, let's have a game, shall we? Pewds? You play darts?"

Which is why Pewdie finds himself sitting next to Speed two hours later, decked in the shabby fireman's jacket that's two sizes too big for him and getting smirked at by the asshole with the freaky eyes because he'd lost a game of darts to Barbetta of all people.

"This is unfair punishment," Pewdie grumbles, feeling awfully silly in the jacket. Unfortunately, Speed hears him and slings an arm around his shoulders, squeezing them, "Cheer up, Pewds. You didn't do that bad. Compared to me, that is. You just need a lot more concentration next time. Look at the bright side, at least you're one of us now."

'You're one of us now.' Pewdie's eyes widen at the remark, feeling a flutter of warmth in his chest and realises that yes, he actually feels like he _is_ fitting in with these people because he just shared meals with them, exchanged stories with them, played games with them. Is it really _that_ easy to become part of this group? Why isn't anyone objecting to him and Cry being here? Is Speed only saying this to reassure him? Is Speed just speaking for himself and not for the entire group? Is this just a set-up to get Pewdie to let his guard down before the group finally turn on him and kill him off?

When Pewdie looks over at the others, tries to carefully read their facial expressions and their body language, he finds that there is no hostility in them. They seem perfectly at home and at ease with him being here and even Vegas seems to act a little friendlier towards him after the darts game. While Doc is especially nice and comfortable to be around with, Barbetta remains cool and indifferent as always and Delta shifts from acting like an exasperated mother to a goofy teenager at times. It is only the man with the different coloured eyes that Pewdie thinks might have it out for him somehow. He may act innocent enough with his vague words and penetrating stare but Pewdie does not trust him and certainly does not want to be friends with him.

He'd almost forgotten about the last and youngest member of the group until she approaches the kitchen counter almost inconspicuously, like a shy cat sidling next to its master's chair. Surprised, he sees her – Tesla, he is able to recall – spare a quick glance at him but doesn't make any effort to greet him. He watches her reach forward and try to pick up one of the remaining _pau_ from the tray.

"Hello Tesla," Doc spots her and greets her, making Tesla tilt her head up and nod at him in acknowledgement. Pewdie notices that she still has her earphones inserted into each ear and wonders whether she can ever hear him speaking.

"You want some of these?" Doc says, handing her two of his own _pau_ and she abandons the idea of picking the ones from the tray and wordlessly takes them from him. Pewdie watches as she turns and makes her way to the lounge area to pick up a notebook and sit down on one of the couches. Again, Pewdie finds that he can't stop staring at her face, at the strange thing he is able to see in her features. He wants to ask the others about her, about her story, about whether she is suspicious of him and Cry and why she had yet to acknowledge either of them being here. He is interrupted from doing so when Speed cuts in with his booming voice.

"Tesla's back," Speed announces and shoots a meaningful look at the man with the different coloured eyes. "It's your turn at the Watch Tower, Anorak."

"I know," comes the lazy reply before the man picks up the last _pau_ and brushes past them, giving Pewdie a last scrutinising look. Instantly, Pewdie's thoughts about Tesla completely disappear when he feels a sudden urge to throw something at the man's face – maybe this wretched fireman's jacket – but he's unfortunate to leave this intention for too long because Barbetta emits a hum and says, "I'll be off too" and joins the other man out the door. Pewdie finds his gaze drawn onto the slight sway of her hips, her finely shaped backside, the graceful movement of her long legs and thinks, _damn._

Once they are gone from the room, his thoughts avert back to the man with the unsettling, multi-coloured stare. "I really don't like that guy," Pewdie mutters to himself, unaware that Speed is listening on the stool beside him.

"What? The Anorak?" Speed says with a rise of his bushy eyebrows. "He's really not that bad. Sometimes I think he's just saying things like that to tease us but really, he's not so bad once you get to know him."

Pewdie frowns a little, remembering the way Speed had said the man's name. "Did you just say ' _the_ Anorak'? With a 'the' in the front?"

"That is what he is called," Delta enunciates in a clear and rather dramatic voice from the other side of the counter. He is pulling out a chopping board and a sharp knife, looking as if he is getting ready to cook something again. "We don't know his real name. He's never told anyone what it is. He just calls himself that like it's a natural thing. Kind of like you and Cry."

"So you actually go around, calling him 'the Anorak'?" Pewdie says, scoffing.

"In a matter of speaking," Speed replies.

"What's the Watch Tower?" Pewdie asks, remembering the others mentioning it.

"Remember the training tower just behind this building?" Speed says, indicating the direction of said tower with a sway of his arm. "You know, the tower that the firefighters use for training? Yeah, that's the Watch Tower. What we do on it is pretty much self-explanatory. We take turns watching the grounds outside the walls of the Fire House. Just now, Tesla finished her shift. Then it'll be the Anorak's turn and then, a few hours later, Doc will be taking over."

"Aye, aye," Doc sounds off from his stool with a smile.

Soon after, Pewdie finds himself spending the rest of the day here, listening to Speed talk about many things. Although his openness seems a little overwhelming at times, Pewdie wholly welcomes it after many months of having to travel with the more guarded Cry. It isn't as if he thinks Cry's company is unpleasant compared to Speed's. It is rather that Speed's jolly, amicable demeanour is something refreshing for him.

Doc, as Pewdie already acknowledges, is pleasant to be with. There's an easy and reassuring ambience when one is with him. Despite this, Doc tends to keep quiet when he's in a circle of people compared to when Pewdie spoke to him on a one-on-one basis. Whether it is because of shyness or because he is too polite to interfere with people's conversations, Pewdie does not know. Nonetheless, Doc seems comfortable being here and prefers listening to others talking rather than doing the talking himself, unlike Speed and the other two. He doesn't stay in the kitchen for very long with them but at one point, excuses himself to go and sit at the table in the lounge.

As for Delta and Vegas, they are a double act because you rarely find one without the other. They sometimes bicker and sometimes discuss topics in a more serious manner. However, it's still a remarkable thing to hear them continue each other's sentences as if they know what the other is going to say. If their appearances aren't so very different, Pewdie thinks they should be deemed twins born from the same mother.

When Pewdie asks the pair if they had known each other long, Delta says, "Actually, no. Not that long. A month or two. Or maybe three. Argh, I don't _know_. But we used to be like you guys too. We're the more recent members of the Fire House. We used to wander around before we joined this place about, was it six or seven weeks ago? As for me and V, we met one day in the past and decided to travel together."

"'Just met'?" Vegas sends Delta a look with a raised, incredulous eyebrow. "'Just _met_?'"

"Okay, fine," sighs Delta sheepishly. "So I stole some of her supplies one day. Couldn't help it. I was sort of a cat burglar back in university. Long story. But anyway, V was on her own and her stuff was just lying there so I took them and ran and then she chased me down. For _hours._ Imagine that! For _hours_. That's some commitment! And she was screaming about all these obscene things she was going to do to me when she caught me, like how she was going to shoot my face with so many bullets until there won't be anything left for anyone to recognise, or tear my brains right out of my mouth with her ice axe."

"There's that thing about hanging you on a hook like a piece of meat and watching you get eaten alive by zombies," Vegas supplies.

"Oh, yeah that," Delta says, nodding thoughtfully. "Ah, there was a thing that you mentioned about wanting to crush my bones with a steamroller when we passed through that construction site."

"Not really my best threat, I know," Vegas sighs and Pewdie shudders a little in response to the casual way in which she and Delta have described these violent images. They may seem like unrealistic threats but Pewdie doesn't feel like finding out whether Vegas is capable of carrying any of them out.

"So anyway," Delta continues and there's a brightness in his dark eyes, indicating to everyone how absorbed he is in delivering his story. "V finally catches up to me a couple of hours later – she'd been on my tail without stopping, could you believe that? Wait, I did mention she chased me for hours, right? Right. So, I'd been climbing and leaping and ducking under places and she finally catches up to me and almost tackles me down and then we're circling each other like wolves, waiting for the first one to make a move. That's when we started talking and the next thing we knew, we became good and then decided we should stick together."

There is a short, astonished pause from Pewdie before he stammers out, 'Th-that's it? You two just talked it out?"

"Well, we exchanged a few sentences," Delta clarifies with a grin. "Mostly threats from V, of course. As for me, I gave her a couple of smartass comments which – if said to a normal person holding a gun to your face – would have gotten me killed fast on the spot."

"I actually don't remember what it was we said," Vegas suddenly huffs out with a shake of her head.

"Oh yeah, me either," Delta realises in disappointment, his face falling into a comical pout and making Speed and (surprisingly) Pewdie laugh at his exaggerated expression.

For one reassuring moment, Pewdie thinks that the world feels normal once again, that he is staying at a university dorm exchanging some light-hearted banter with a couple of flatmates because the atmosphere right now feels awfully similar to it. It's easy to think that beyond the walls of the Fire House, there isn't an eerie silence in town, that it isn't overrun by hordes of walking dead people, that stepping outside this compound doesn't promise you the possibility of death.

"Hey, Delta tells me you and Cry did this thing with the zombies," Speed is saying, jerking him out of his thoughts. "You know, that you could sneak past them without letting them notice you."

"Like a couple of ninjas," Delta adds, mentioning the label with delight.

"Is that really true?" Speed asks. "I just thought him and V were just fucking with me."

"You doubt us too much," Vegas sighs in return.

Pewdie feels a sense of pride rise in his chest. "It's true," he tells him, trying not to sound too smug about it. "It takes some practice but yeah, we can do it alright."

"Damn, I wish I could see that," Speed says in a tone of wonder. "It sounds fucking awesome."

"If you come to our next op, maybe you can," Delta remarks, wiggling his eyebrows.

"'Next op'?" Pewdie echoes in confusion. Wait, what are they saying? "What do you mean by 'next op'?" he asks, feeling his unease creep back to him.

Vegas sighs again, this time while rolling her eyes before she aims an elbow nudge at Delta's ribs. "D, here," she explains to Pewdie. "He's been going on about how you two can lend us your ninja powers the next time we go raiding for supplies."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Delta says, whimpering from Vegas's elbow blow on his ribs. He then looks at Pewdie with a hopeful look in his eyes. "I mean, you wouldn't mind, would you? If you and Cry could lend us a little help once in a while? That is, if you want to. We're not forcing you or anything. Am I being too forward and thinking too far ahead? Oh no, I _am_ , aren't I?"

When Pewdie doesn't answer him because he really doesn't know what to say about it, Vegas then speaks out with an air of dismissing the topic, "Settle down, D. And go cook that rice. Speedy's been eyeing it for a while."

Sometime later, Vegas lifts her head from rolling a handful of fried rice into a ball, studies the lounge behind them and says, "Cry is here."

"What?" Pewdie immediately whips his head around and feels a wave of relief in his chest when he spots Cry sitting at the table where Doc had been, his shovel lying carelessly under his seat. He thinks for a moment that he's never been so happy to see Cry. When did he get here? he wonders. How come he didn't see Pewdie in the room– Oh, the jacket and the haircut, Pewdie instantly realises. If Cry had recognised him here, he would have come over and joined them.

Unfortunately, Pewdie's stomach plummets unpleasantly when he realises that the man who is sitting next to Cry is none other than the Anorak. The other man must have finished his shift at the Watch Tower and Doc must have taken his place, which would explain why the latter is absent from the room right now. Tesla, on the other hand, hasn't moved from her spot on the couch. Her head is buried in the pages of a notebook and her lips are fluttering as she reads from it to herself.

"They look like they're really into it," Vegas comments from the other side of the counter, tilting her head a little at Cry and the Anorak. Absent-mindedly, she pops the rice ball she had been rolling into her mouth, earning her an unseen glare from Delta. "Whatever it is they're talking about, they look like they're really into it."

An unexpected feeling of protectiveness swells in Pewdie's chest and he stands up, intending to head over to Cry's table. Speed notices and says, "Saying hello to Cry? Tell him that food's going to be ready soon." He then claps him on the shoulder and lets him leave the kitchen.

As Pewdie approaches the table, he catches Cry mutter, "–said anything about Pewdie."

"Said _what_ about Pewdie?" he instantly asks, making Cry and the Anorak turn around. Now that Cry is looking at him, studying his shortened hair and fireman's jacket, Pewdie realises that the other man must be wondering how this happened, he must be wondering why Pewdie had _let_ this happen. Pewdie knows that Cry would probably not approve of it, that he would probably be upset with him even more after last night. He feels that he can't face Cry now, can't talk to him if the other man might become mad because of this.

So instead, he averts his attention onto the Anorak and knows it is a bad idea. "Are you talking to him about me?" Pewdie asks and he can't help but harden his stare when his eyes meet the Anorak's mismatched ones.

He was right when he'd thought that talking to the Anorak instead of Cry had been a bad idea. Once again, a stream of speculations run through his head following every utterance that the Anorak throws at him. When he catches Cry's glance and realises that they share the same assumption about the Anorak knowing what was going on between them, Pewdie had tried to coax the man into confessing it. He wants to hear the actual words coming from his mouth and demand an explanation for them. What he doesn't expect is the Anorak shooting him a look of confusion and saying, "Sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

 _What the fuck–?_ Pewdie thinks it's been a long time since he's met anyone this frustrating in his whole life. He stares, feeling stunned and uncertain about everything – about what this man is saying, about what Pewdie, himself, thinks. He doesn't understand what it is that the Anorak wants.

"What's your problem anyway?" he snaps, his mind close to a state of frenzy. "You're clearly trying to fuck with me."

He barely hears what Cry has to say about it because he's too busy trying to figure out the Anorak and it's difficult. It's difficult to try to get something out of him without him dropping another bewildering, infuriating statement that makes Pewdie unsure of his own. Pewdie is grateful – oh-so-grateful – when Speed steps in in the end and his presence and booming voice shatters the tense atmosphere around the table. He thinks he's never been so grateful to the other man for coming at the right time. He doesn't know what will happen if he and the Anorak kept their conversation going.

"You two at it again?" Speed is saying and Pewdie feels his heavy arm drape around his shoulders. His anger at the Anorak still boils within him but he tries his best to extinguish it. "Man, we leave you two alone for a couple of minutes and _already_ you're at each other's throats," Speed continues. "Maybe we should keep you two away from each other from now on. But seriously, come on, dudes. Chill out, yeah? Anorak? Pewds?"

When Barbetta returns to the room and joins their ever expanding circle – Vegas and Delta must have decided that the kitchen was getting too boring and went to check out what the excitement is all about – Pewdie can't help but look at her buxom chest when she approaches them, notices them bobbing gently up and down her tank top as she moves. When he's aware that he might have been staring a little too long, he glances away, feeling his face flushing red in embarrassment. Don't look, Pewds, he scolds himself. No matter how tempting it is, don't look at those titties.

"I think we agree that your hair has grown too long for you," Barbetta tells an equally flustered Cry. "If you don't mind, I'd like to cut it."

Cry too? Pewdie thinks. Speed isn't kidding when he mentioned no one could escape Barbetta's scissors.

Sometime later, Barbetta says, "So you'd like to stay and watch?" when Vegas ushers everyone back to the kitchen and Pewdie chooses to stay behind. It isn't that he wants to watch Barbetta cut Cry's hair. It's just that when Pewdie has his cut several hours ago, he had wished for Cry to be there with him. He knows it's a childish impulse when he felt it that time but for some reason, he feels that he should be present whether Cry felt the same way or not.

"I'm..." he looks at Cry instead of Barbetta as he speaks. "I'll just stay here with Cry... if that's okay with you." He intends this last utterance for Cry and catches the other man's nod of gratitude, returning the gesture with a small, tight smile of his own.

Barbetta, as Speed had already pointed out, turns out to be rather good with her haircutting skills. He does find it a little strange though when he discovers that the scissors she had been using are ones that are normally used for surgery. By the time Barbetta finishes and steps back, Cry shakily stands from his chair, his hair looking considerably shorter and his recently shaven face flushed red. He puts his glasses back on and exhales heavily.

"Um..." Cry says and awkwardly scratches the back of his head. "Thanks for that, uh... Barbetta."

"My pleasure," Barbetta murmurs nonchalantly with a nod and stashes her scissors back into an unseen pocket. "Are you hungry? Food should be ready soon. If you'll excuse me..." she then makes her exit from the table, leaving Pewdie and Cry on their own for the first time that day.

There is an air of awkwardness between them for a moment and a sense of anticipation for someone to break the silence. Pewdie doesn't detect any negative vibes from Cry which makes this a good sign but as seconds pass by quietly, he begins chewing on his bottom lip in an uneasy manner, wondering what he should talk about. In the end though, it is Cry who forces himself to meet his gaze and say, "Do I look stupid?" The other man is absent-mindedly rubbing the back of his head, his fingers brushing the shortened hair. The redness on his face has yet to fade away.

Pewdie studies him for a few seconds before saying in an honest tone, "You look fine. She did a good job on you."

Cry fixes him a scrutinising look in return, as if he is expecting Pewdie to burst out laughing but seems satisfied with what he sees as Pewdie maintains a straight, serious expression. He then sees the corner of Cry's lip curl up into a smile. "Man," Cry says with a little playful scoff and it sends a pleasant jolt of warmth back into Pewdie's chest. "She cut yours a little too short. I could barely recognise you from the back, you know."

"Yeah, I _thought_ it feels a little weird," Pewdie agrees with a motioning gesture towards his hair. "I don't usually get it cut like this."

"You could've told her to stop," Cry points out rather huffily. "I mean, she was rather forward about all this, don't you think? Plus, she doesn't even _know_ us."

"Yeah, well, I couldn't," Pewdie tells him with a shake of his head. "She... uh..." he suddenly pauses when he gets a flashback of the view of Barbetta's breasts so near his face. Instantly, he glances away when he recognises the familiar heat that's quickly creeping back up his neck.

To his surprise, he hears Cry let out an unmistakable snicker in front of him. "You too, huh?" comes Cry's question and his voice is shaking a little, as if it is trying not to break into laughter. Pewdie's mouth stretches into a smile when he realises that Cry must have had the same, awkward experience during that session with Barbetta as well.

"Seriously though," Cry continues. "I thought that was probably the most exciting yet terrifying experience in my _life_."

Pewdie cannot help but snort at the words. "Are you _kidding_?" he says and lowers his voice so no one can hear except for the two of them. "She was so close to me, like _really_ close, that I thought I felt a nipple brush my arm!" He's not sure if it really happened but nonetheless, their close proximity had been rather outrageous. If Pewdie had leaned a little nearer that time, he would have found his face pressed into her chest.

Cry looks scandalised for a second at his comment before he suddenly bursts into a fit of stifled giggles, covering his smiling mouth with a fist. Pewdie grins widely at the reaction because it feels like it's been a long time since he's heard Cry laugh despite the fact that it hadn't been the case. He thinks his heart feels a little lighter now, a lot warmer now, as he watches the sparkling glee dancing in Cry's eyes again.

"You lucky _bastard_ ," Cry manages to huff out in between giggles.

"You're just _jealous_ ," Pewdie sing-songs through his grin.

"The fuck I'm jealous," Cry gasps amidst his not-so-conspicuous giggling. "That was probably one of the closest I'd been to a pair of tits like Barbetta's. Thank god I'm still alive in a zombie apocalypse to come across them in this lifetime!"

At this, Pewdie lets out a huff of laughter, unable to help himself. "I think I'll be able to die happy now."

"Hells yeah! Me too," Cry agrees a little too loudly.

"Shhhh – hahaha – goddammit, keep your voice down, will you?"

"Oh, you sh-sh-shut up."

And they're laughing again – or rather, snickering quietly together by the table like a pair of mischievous children, trying their best to keep their voices down. They don't want to catch the attention of the others from the kitchen, who might think their little joke seems amusing enough that it should be shared with the rest of group. Pewdie does not want to be caught awing over Barbetta's breasts alongside Cry and he has a strong feeling that Cry thinks the same way as well.

For one wonderful moment, Pewdie is pleased at where they are now, at the fact that they're laughing together once more, that they're slowly reconnecting. He even delivers a little thanks to Barbetta's breasts for bringing him and Cry back together. He thinks, we're good. We _should_ be okay. At least, I hope so.

"So," Cry says once he and Pewdie's stifled laughs die down and disappear completely. His expression changes, his eyes becoming stern and serious. "How are they?"

Instantly, Pewdie knows exactly who Cry is talking about. "In general? They're surprisingly alright," he informs him very quietly, referring to the group members he'd been spending time with all day. "They don't feel like much of a threat to us. And they don't feel threatened by us being here at all. It's all pretty weird actually. It's almost as if they _want_ us to be here but I don't know. Speed – he's already saying I've become 'one of them' now. I don't know if he really means that. It could all just be an act but only time will tell. Maybe they'll show their true colours once something comes up."

"Well, I totally don't want that to happen," Cry mutters, exhaling. "It'll be bad news for us if something goes wrong and they decide to put the blame on us."

"Probably best to lay low?" Pewdie offers. "Don't get on their bad side?"

"Exactly. That and we get better soon so we can quickly leave this place," Cry says with a nod. "Speaking of bad sides, what's the deal between you and the Anorak anyway?" he then asks, his eyebrow quirked upwards in curiosity.

"Don't tell me you don't feel the same way about that guy," Pewdie replies, sending him an incredulous look.

"Well, he does seem a little..." Cry pauses to search for a word. "A little creepy," he settles with this in the end. "He makes you... think a lot."

"He says stuff like he knows things about you, right?" Pewdie says, narrowing his eyes. He shoots a glance at the kitchen but is unable to see the Anorak from where he is standing. "It's weird. I mean, if someone else said it, I wouldn't mind because it's pretty general, the stuff he says, because it can apply to anybody. But when he says it to you, you can't help but think it's got something to do with you, _specifically_. God, I don't know what the hell is his problem. I ask him what the fuck is his deal and he claims that he's not saying shit to offend me and I'm not buying any of it."

Cry looks unsure for a moment before he leans closer and asks him, "Did he say anything, um, _really_ personal to you?" There's a quiver of agitation in his voice.

"'Really personal'?" Pewdie says, thinking back and remembering the first time the Anorak had spoken directly to him about his thoughts of being stuck here in America. He remembers his outrage when the Anorak mentioned that statement about being frustrated with your travelling partner despite tolerating him. On one hand, Pewdie agrees that the Anorak had no right to say those things because they were far too close to Pewdie's own private words (and, for the record, how the hell did he _know_?). On the other, the statement was also vague enough that it could have just been a general one which was uttered by coincidence. Pewdie doesn't know which assumption to go for. For a moment, he wonders whether the Anorak might have had that same effect on Cry and his mind too.

"I guess he probably did," Pewdie answers Cry's question offhandedly before furrowing his eyebrows into a frown. "Is _that_ what happened to you?" he says to Cry.

Cry doesn't answer immediately but something flashes across his face, albeit far too quickly for Pewdie to read before it sets itself into one of nonchalance. "Yeah, the same kind of thing, I guess," the other man replies curtly and Pewdie has a vague impression that there is more to this that is being left unsaid. "He has this weird effect on people when he speaks. I just think the whole thing is a bit creepy."

"I really don't like that guy," Pewdie mutters with a scowl. "He just fucks with my head. It's driving me crazy, thinking about the things he says."

Cry's silence after his remark makes him look at him worriedly. The other man seems anxious, agitated, and Pewdie wonders if something _else_ had happened which is making Cry react like this. "Did he _say_ something to you?" Pewdie says in alarm and once again, feels that sense of protectiveness for the other man. "Cry?"

Eventually, Cry releases a small sigh of defeat. "...Honestly?" he says, glancing up at Pewdie, his expression a little grim. "I don't know. I don't know what to think about that guy. Or what he says. Or what he wants. He just... He freaks me out a little. All I know is, I got a bad feeling about him."

It's the most genuine explanation he gets from Cry yet. Pewdie then leans his head a little closer to Cry's until they're almost touching and murmurs quietly, "We should keep an eye on him. He could be trouble."

"Oi!" Vegas hollers from the mini-kitchen. Pewdie and Cry startle and pull away from each other before turning to see her waving at them from over a batch of steaming rice balls. "You two done gossiping like school girls already? When you're ready, get your asses over here and eat."

Cry shoots Pewdie's jacket a rather judgemental look. "How long does this punishment last again?"

Pewdie clicks his tongue in an irritable manner. "No fucking idea," he replies, tugging on the wretched, scorched thing. Cry snickers at the displeased expression that he is pulling and Pewdie notes the smile on his lips, the twinkle of amusement in his eyes. When Cry takes a step forwards, intending to head towards the kitchen, Pewdie suddenly reaches out and grabs him by his sleeve, stopping him from moving. Cry looks at the hand on his arm in confusion before lifting his head to meet Pewdie's eyes.

"What's wrong?" he says, looking and sounding alarmed.

Pewdie licks his lips, feeling his stomach flutter with nervous butterflies. The reason why he had reached out for Cry was that he had been seized by a sudden urge to explain himself for what he had done the night before. He doesn't know how this impulse had appeared and what might have triggered its arrival. Either way, he realises that he wants to tell Cry that he means what he said that night, because that is what he feels about him. He wants to admit to Cry that the timing of that confession of his had been a bad one and that he should have said it some other time and in some other way. He wants to quickly clear the air between them, wants them to get over their issues because it doesn't help to keep their problems hovering over their heads like ominous storm clouds, ready to break when they grow too heavy with tension.

Most importantly, Pewdie wants them to _really_ be okay again because they _need_ to right now, at this moment, before they step into the kitchen, before they proceed to negotiate with this small survivor group – just the two of them against a team of seven people. He thinks that this is the time for it because they've just sort of patched up and are being friendly with one other again. He just wants this bad air between them to disappear so that they bear no more grudges against each another. He thinks, it has to be _now_.

"Before we join the others, there's something I want to say to you," Pewdie says, trying to keep his voice steady. "Cry. About last night–"

At once, he stops when he catches the changing expression on Cry's face, notices how quickly the alarm, the curiosity and the previous merriment which they had shared before slips from his features. It's replaced by a hard and stony stare of indifference. Pewdie had seen this before on the day when he and Cry lost the car. Cry is reacting the same way again, with a tension in his shoulders as if bracing himself for Pewdie's verbal prods, with a readiness in his gaze to block out the effect of his words, with a determination in his sealed lips to keep himself quiet.

But this time, Pewdie isn't having any of Cry's stubborn silence. Because he'd changed now. He'd grown from this. He isn't afraid anymore.

So he tugs on Cry's sleeve and says firmly, demandingly, "I'm sorry, but you're not going to keep quiet this time, Cry. No way. Not like the last time. Not after everything we went through. I know you're better than this. You're going to talk to me."

Cry is looking back at him and Pewdie can clearly see something hidden in that carefully blank expression of his. Could that be dread? Reluctance? He wonders whether Cry is thinking that he can still escape if he continues to maintain his silence. The more Pewdie stares at him, pressuring him to respond, the more he notices the strain on Cry's face appearing more prominent after every second. In the end, Cry's mask of indifference cracks and slips completely from his face, revealing to Pewdie the cold, raw anger in his eyes.

"You want to talk?" Cry tells Pewdie sharply. "There's nothing to talk about right now. This is a bad fucking time to talk anyway."

"This is the _only_ time to talk about this, before anything else happens," Pewdie hisses back, trying to get him to understand. "We need to be okay about this. That's why I need to explain–"

"You don't need to explain anything," Cry cuts in almost brashly. "I don't _care_ about what you think. I don't even want to hear about whatever it is you want to say to me."

Pewdie's grip on his sleeve tightens a little. "You don't mean that," he says in a whisper. His heart is aching a little.

But Cry doesn't answer him. Instead, he roughly pulls his arm free from Pewdie's grip before he leans down to retrieve his shovel from the floor. By the time he straightens, the anger in his face is gone, replaced once again by an expression of stony indifference. He then turns towards the kitchen and walks off without another glance at Pewdie, who stares after him in disbelief for a second before his face darkens into a resentful frown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [So... that happened too.]
> 
> Apologies again for the slow pacing of this story lately but I felt I needed to get this out of the way first. (Anyway, we do need a break after all that highly tense excitement in the last couple of chapters).
> 
> Some quick notes: so this chapter just featured the appearance of Tao Sar Pau, which is basically Chinese steamed buns (yes I was craving for red bean buns while writing, okay?), some more breast appreciation, Pewds and his protectiveness over Cry and - goddammit - another falling out between these two idiots. Sort of.
> 
> On another note, my personal thoughts on the OCs includes the fact that I really like and hate writing the Anorak. Despite that though, he is secretly my favourite character out of the lot of them probably because he is so hard to write and also, he's still pretty mysterious to the rest of us.
> 
> Finally, Pewdie had acknowledged (or somewhat acknowledged) that he's a lot bolder and is firmer now with regards to how he's treating Cry, particular when the latter gets this way. Hence the fact that Pewds isn't going to have any of Cry's shitfits as described in these lines: "But this time, Pewdie isn't having any of Cry's stubborn silence. Because he'd changed now. He'd grown from this. He isn't afraid anymore."
> 
> Phew. Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed this chapter even if it's only a little bit. Don't worry, my lovelies. The goodbadgoodbad stuff has yet to come. As always, feedback/kudos/comments are always appreciated and do please drop one if you enjoyed.
> 
> Special thanks to doodlepie and Chameishida for the fanart. Here's the latter's take on Vegas and Delta:
> 
> http://chameshida.tumblr.com/post/78850284879/vegus-and-delta-from-what-is-faith-aka-that


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES HELLO I AM NOT DEAD
> 
> SO HERE'S 15K+ WORTH OF WORDS FOR YOU TO GET LOST IN FIRST

**16.**

Four days. They'd been here four days and Cry feels like he'd stayed at the Fire House for a lot longer. Already he knows much about the layout of the place, that he can pinpoint which rooms the group members used or had left undisturbed, that the pipes on the second floor groaned when it got too hot in the middle of the day, that Speed tended to drift off to sleep, often in midsentence, on hot days like these, that Delta always bullied Vegas into watching the sun rise and fall in the sky an hour before dawn and dusk on the rooftop even though the latter hated climbing out of the windows to get there.

Four days and he cannot help but admit that he was accommodating to this new lifestyle.

After his and Pewdie's latest dispute, he'd been determined at first to remain distant and aloof to the other man – because it was much too _soon._ Much too soon to talk about it, much too soon to think about it, much too soon to hear apologies or explanations. He wanted nothing from Pewdie at the moment, even if it meant shutting him out.

At the same time, he'd wanted to be the same way with the survivor group. There was no need to make friends or form attachments with these people because this was only supposed to be another pit stop for them. He'd planned to keep himself out of everyone's way so that he could focus on fully recovering and becoming strong enough to resume his and Pewdie's journey.

Sure enough, he was able to keep up with this agenda during the dinner following his latest disagreement with Pewdie. He had offered curt, sullen replies to a few selected questions from the others – "No, I don't use anything else except my shovel" and "well, I've learned to pick locks" and very occasionally, a simple "No" followed by silence. Once he'd finished eating, he immediately excused himself from the room, not bothering to linger for a post-dinner chat.

But his plan to remain antisocial didn't quite stay that way for long. Not when Delta shook him awake the next day to an empty room – it looked like Pewdie had risen earlier than him once more – and dragged him through a few hallways and up a flight of stairs to fetch a bunch of tools from a dusty store room. Vegas needed a specific kind of hammer to fix a broken panel that was part of their multimedia barrier and she'd sent Delta inside to fetch it. The only problem was that the store room had five different toolboxes and Delta couldn't carry all of them in one go, leading him to seek Cry's help. Cry had considered protesting at the other man's disruption of his plan but decided against it afterwards. Instead, he'd emerged into the sunlight trailing after a flustered Delta, two toolboxes in his arms at the ready, and allowed Vegas to usher him to a worn-out section of their fortress wall where she instructed him to replace the crumbling materials. So instead of sitting in his room on his own to rest, Cry fell into working instead, listening quietly to Vegas and Delta's chattering in the background.

In the beginning, he'd been afraid of the questions that the pair might have for him as they worked on the wall together, but he was grateful when neither of them spoke to him apart from some casual requests to pass them different tools. He didn't mind them not involving him in their conversations though. He'd much preferred the silence compared to the nosy questions from the night before. It wasn't long before he lost himself in his task and only emerged when Vegas plucked the hammer out of his hand, an amused smirk on her face, and told him that the work was satisfactory and that he could go.

Then, just before dinner that evening, Cry forgot about his plan to stay aloof and distant to everyone when Delta – he couldn't understand why it was always Delta who came and forced him out of the room – pulled him upstairs and through a door and then persuaded him to have a go on the fireman's pole. He'd been reluctant at first, thinking it was an immature idea, but then he thought, _fuck it,_ and slid down the pole anyway, feeling his palms burn, his head spin and his heart soar in his chest. He'd landed and collapsed on the ground, gasping; a huff of laughter bubbling out of his throat. That had been _amazing_.

"I told you it was fun!" Delta told the grinning Cry, who sat on the ground, feeling giddy and exhilarated from the slide. "Wanna do it again?" he then asked, returning Cry's grin, and Cry was astonished to find himself liking Delta and that he did not mind the other man's company. Acknowledging this, he accepted the invitation and Delta's outstretched hand instantly.

Afterwards, he'd told himself that, aside from Delta, he really should continue to keep his distance from the others at least. He needed rest and some space to be alone, needed time for his injuries and his strength to recover. He really tried to at first. But this became a futile effort once he bumped into Barbetta in one of the hallways and was ushered into another room and then challenged to a small table soccer match with Doc keeping score. (He had lost all five matches despite Doc's helpful tips, but was sure that he was getting better at the game after every round).

Not long after that, he found himself helping Speed wash the dishes in the kitchen and was unable to stop himself from explaining the appeal of MMORPG games to the other man when he'd expressed his lack of knowledge of them. Later on, he was told to go up the Watch Tower to call the Anorak down from his shift. Thankfully, they exchanged no words during their trip down but Cry still felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, knowing that the Anorak's mismatched eyes were on him. He'd then passed Tesla on the way back to his and Pewdie's room and was surprised when she gave him a small nod of acknowledgement as a reply to his nervous 'hello'.

It seemed that trying to avoid other people's company in a community like this was pointless because he kept getting ushered back into activity whenever he tried to shut himself away. The more he got involved though, the more he saw that Pewdie had been right when he'd said that Doc and the others weren't such a bad lot. Which was why Cry let himself be pulled into everyone else's activities on the following day and was astounded at just how quickly he found himself getting used to the place, at how quickly he was getting used to being with these people. Eventually, he began to remember just how pleasant and warm it felt to be surrounded by a band of people who got along well with one another. In fact, the atmosphere at the Fire House seemed so lax and laidback and _safe_ that it was all too easy to forget that an apocalypse had happened outside these walls.

Four days. He can't remember the last time he'd genuinely enjoyed himself. Throughout their stay, he hadn't thought about a single zombie for more than twenty-four hours like this since the world ended.

As for Pewdie, Cry hadn't seen much of the other man since their last dispute. The only time when they did come face-to-face with one another was during dinnertime (Vegas was very particular about making sure everyone was present during dinnertime or else "I swear to god I'll be nailing your bedroom doors shut and make you starve to death"). They also saw each other sometimes when they got ready for bed. The first time they happened to find themselves alone in their room together since that day, Cry had been tense and agitated in the beginning. He'd been expecting Pewdie to try confronting him again, drag him back and force him to face that unwelcome topic, but he was surprised when he received nothing but silence from the other man. Pewdie seemed to have gone back to being indifferent towards him again, barely casting a glance at his direction as he tucked himself into his bed sheets and faced the wall.

At first, Cry didn't know how to react to this. He was a little relieved that there wasn't going to be a confrontation that night but at the same time, he found himself somewhat irritated for being the one receiving the cold shoulder again. However, that irritation died down a little when he managed to catch Pewdie's almost inaudible mumble of "Night" to Cry before the former went to sleep.

(Even if they're fighting, it's somehow still okay when they say things like this to each other.)

Afterwards, they continue to keep their distance and Cry can't help but think that what they're doing isn't really a case of blatantly ignoring each other. They're both trying to give the other their own space to do their own thing. Cry finds that he feels a little lighter and freer when he doesn't have the burden of Pewdie's constant presence nearby so often. Being busy and being with other people certainly stopped him from thinking about what had happened between them recently.

Despite that though, Cry can't help but notice that aside from his own gradual assimilation into the group, Pewdie seemed to be settling in the Fire House extremely well. Out of everyone here, he got along best with Speed. It was obvious from the way they clicked so well together. In the short amount of time that they knew each other, Speed was somehow able to bring Pewdie out of his shell. Cry hadn't seen the latter become so lively like this since he'd seen his last videogame gameplay. He and Speed seem to act as if they've been friends for years, trading in-jokes, playful punches and some pop culture references. It reminded Cry of a time when he and Pewdie used to be something like that a long time ago, when they met over the internet, when they still had Youtube channels, when they still played and bonded over videogames together.

Cry doesn't know what to feel about this development, whether Pewdie may or may not be trying to substitute Cry's company with Speed's. He tries to tell himself that he shouldn't care, that he _doesn't_ care, because he and Pewdie are giving one another the space they needed and therefore, it was _fine_. But a small voice in Cry's head keeps nudging him towards a direction he doesn't particularly like – a direction that whispers sinisterly to him about Pewdie eventually replacing Cry with Speed, about Pewdie melting into Doc's circle of friends and becoming lost to him, about Pewdie leaving, _leaving_ – and whenever this happens, Cry quickly stifles the voice and shuts the whispers out of his mind. He convinces himself that what Pewdie is doing is only a phase and nothing more. That eventually, they will leave all this, the both of them together, and head towards the radio tower as they should be.

It is on the afternoon of that fifth day that Cry begins to get a sense that something important is about to happen in the future for the residents of the Fire House. He feels ripples of anticipation for it from the others, overhears snippets of conversation, catches words like "sneaking in" and "distraction" and "supply room", maybe a brief mention about a tunnel and a river and Doc's emphasis about not bringing along many firearms. He has a feeling that some kind of plan is brewing, some 'next op', and he can tell that the team had been working on it for a while. Whatever it was, it wasn't really a secret since the topic was broached upon quite openly and no one bothered to clarify anything because everyone knew what they were talking about.

Cry had been tempted to ask them what they were discussing about when he first caught wind of it, but decided against it in the end. After all, whatever it is that their hosts are about to do, it has nothing to do with him and Pewdie, who are merely just passing by after all.

That is, until he finally speaks to Tesla.

At the time that Cry has been here, he rarely sees Tesla, much less talked to her or heard her voice. He doesn't know much about her, only that she mostly ignores him and Pewdie whenever they happen to be in the same room together. Apart from that, she'd been extremely elusive to everyone else, appearing only around dinnertime to grace everyone with her presence and then disappearing not long after. Because of this, her continued absence often made Cry forget about her, which is why he's surprised to find her waiting for him outside his and Pewdie's room later that night.

 _Oh_ , is his reaction when he spots her leaning against the wall near the room door, with her earphones, as always, wedged into her ears. He can see her clutching a small leather pouch in her hand. At his approach, she straightens a little from her slouch and tilts her head up to look at him as she only reached the middle of his chest. For a second, Cry is struck by just how young and small she is.

"Um," Cry mumbles, forcing a smile, unsure of how to address her. "Hello, Tesla."

Tesla does not return his smile – why would she? She barely knew him still – but she does nod once in greeting.

"Were you waiting for me?" Cry asks, unconsciously tugging on the strap of his shovel. He stops when he realises what he'd been doing – anything involving his shovel might look threatening to other people, he thinks – and quickly stuffs his hand into a pocket.

Tesla nods again to answer him and Cry wonders whether her silence may be attributed to shyness. Studying her expression though, he doesn't see any signs of timidity in her face or posture. In fact, her stance reminds him a little of Vegas's – despite being small in stature, they both stand tall, unafraid of the big world around them.

"Alright," says Cry when she continues to say nothing. "Well, I'm here now. Do you want to come in?" he gestures to his and Pewdie's room and reaches for the doorknob only to be stopped when Tesla holds out a hand. She then lifts the leather pouch she'd been carrying for him to take. He picks it up curiously, hearing a soft clinking of metal coming from inside, and unfolds it. It's a lock pick set, quite similar to the one he'd lost at the furniture store.

He stares at the metal tools inside the pouch in bewilderment for a while. "Oh," he finally says, unsure of how to react. Tesla would have known about his lock-picking skills from that first dinner a few days ago. "Thank you."

Tesla doesn't answer but watches as he folds the pouch and tucks it into the crook of his arm. She doesn't turn around and leave like he expects but seems to be waiting for him to say something. At first, Cry thinks that maybe she wants something in return for this unexpected gift of hers but soon realises that she is actually waiting for him to ask a question.

And so, he does. "Why are you giving this to me?"

Tesla opens her mouth. "You will need it in order to get through the door," she says straightforwardly, as if she expects Cry to know what kind of door she's talking about. He frowns, his mind coming up blank.

"Door? What door?"

"It will be part of the plan," she simply says without clarifying anything further and this just confuses Cry even more. "For the next op."

"Plan? Wait. Hold the phone. Just what are you talking about...?" Cry starts to say before falling silent when his mind begins to work again and the realisation hits him. Of course, the _plan_ , he thinks. _Their_ plan. The plan that the group had been discussing, the same one he'd been hearing about all this time and hadn't been bothered to know more. The 'next op'. But what has that got to do with him?

"What exactly is going to happen here?" Cry says, suspicion creeping into his tone.

"Not here," says Tesla with a little shake of her head, causing her too-long fringe to briefly hide her eyes for a second. "Elsewhere. There's a door at the end of a tunnel. It's locked. There's no key but you now have a way to open it. It'll get you inside their camp. A much better way than going in from the roof."

Cry's confusion, not to mention his distress at the continued vagueness of their topic, intensifies. "... _What_?"

"It will be part of the plan," Tesla says again, emphatically. She doesn't seem impatient or irritated but continues to plough on as if Cry already knows what she is talking about. "Part of the next op. It's important that both of you know what you're supposed to do."

This isn't helping, Cry thinks to himself. This is all too fast. Moreover, he doesn't like feeling as if he's missed something pretty important here. Unable to take any more of this, Cry lets out an exasperated sigh, the first audible sign of his frustration. "Tesla, I have no _idea_ what you're talking about," he points out sternly, demandingly. He wants Tesla to stop for a while and give him an _explanation._

Tesla's expression doesn't waver at the sharpness in his tone. She merely replies, "Yes, you do. You know about the plan." And she leaves it at that and waits as if she expects him to figure it out.

He's bewildered at first at Tesla's behaviour, at the way she keeps bombarding him with information with so little context, at her no-nonsense way of speaking as well as her refusal to explain anything to him, but eventually, his mind pieces together everything he knows and has heard so far. He knows that there is a plan, yes, a 'next op' that is going to happen sometime. He was given a lock pick set to open a door at the end of a tunnel that leads into a camp. Then he remembers words like "sneaking in" and "distraction" and "supply room" and something about a river and firearms–

Oh, no. No _way._ Can it be...?

"Are we..." Cry breathes, feeling something unpleasant turn in his stomach as all the elements he puts together begin to make sense. "Are we going to _steal_?" It isn't just that. He is less than pleased by the discovery that somehow, he and Pewdie seemed to be _involved_ in this plan of theirs.

"We're taking some things back," Tesla corrects him and she doesn't seem to notice the distress on his face. "They're the ones who took from us first. Broke in here a few weeks ago. We're just returning the favour. That's how it works."

"But what we're about to do still counts as stealing," Cry points out.

Tesla shrugs, "It isn't wrong. Not anymore. Not for a long time. Sometimes, it's just necessary."

"We don't _steal_ ," Cry tells her firmly, resolutely.

"You don't have to," Tesla says. "You only have to cause a distraction."

"I don't quite follow," Cry remarks, trying to get his mind wrapped around this realisation. "Why us? Why are we even _involved_? Why didn't you guys ask us – talked to us directly about this? You just drop hints around us and expect us to know what the hell is going on. You don't get to do that. You don't just expect us to do things. You have to _ask_ first." He's suddenly aware that his voice had risen in volume and he checks himself, swallowing down his growing anger.

"They will," Tesla says coolly and Cry stops to blink down at her. "They will tell you about it and then they will ask you. Tomorrow. You were never actually part of the plan. But we will wait for the time to make a suggestion."

"What?" Cry thinks Tesla's cryptic remarks are just as baffling as the Anorak's. "No. Wait. Just... just why are we even _involved_?" Cry decides to focus on this fact instead because he wants to get to the bottom of this. "Who thought this was even a good idea?" And then his mind comes up with a possible candidate and he feels a stab of anger in his chest at the idea. _Pewdie,_ he thinks. No. No. No, he couldn't have. He _wouldn't_ have. Not without asking me first–

"Did he...?" Cry begins, his voice trembling with so much emotion that he can't quite get himself to say: _Did he say something to all of you? Was Pewdie in on it all along? And – why have you given me a lock pick set? Why are you even telling me this now? Where are all the others? Shouldn't they be asking this with you? Who put you up to this? Just what is going on?_

"We made it our own choice," Tesla says mysteriously and Cry absently wonders who the other party to Tesla's "we" might be. "We came on our own choice. Before we go and make a suggestion. Before they ask you tomorrow. We decided to give you a heads-up first, a sort of pre-warning before events start to take place."

"Why?" Cry stares at her as he tries to decrypt her words. He then becomes suspicious of the nature of their conversation because it seems an odd thing for her to do, seeking him out and talking to him like this – and behind the backs of her teammates no doubt. It looks almost conspiratorial, something that is beyond Cry's understanding, and he isn't sure what to make of it. Where exactly does Tesla stand in this group of people who are much older than her? He wonders. Did she even like her teammates? From what Cry has seen so far, Tesla never stayed in the company of the others for very long. The group treat her normally enough, like she is the shy little sister who preferred to be on her own, and her own interactions with them are casual and nonchalant. He can't figure out a possible motive for this.

Whatever it is, he doesn't get the chance to mull upon it further because at this point, Tesla turns and begins to walk away, apparently finished with their talk. Instantly, Cry's heart jumps in alarm. He doesn't want to be left with the many half-formed questions in his mind just yet.

"Wait," he calls, reaching out and making her pause in her tracks. "Are you saying– Is... is something going to happen?" he begins and stops. No, this isn't what he meant. "You said 'suggestion'. 'Before we make a suggestion' or something. What did you mean by that? And, and 'pre-warning'. Yes, that," he then adds since that had been the word which had jumped at him out of all the others. "What does that _mean_? What are you saying?" He thinks there might be something else in there, hidden under the layers of the message somewhere, but he can't make out what it is. This uncertainty stirs something like dread in his chest and he wonders for the first time what on earth had he and Pewdie gotten themselves into.

Tesla stares at him for a while, looking as if she is digesting his words, before she seems to compose herself. She then speaks in a tone of indifference, like a child trying to feign innocence, "We don't know what you mean."

'We'? Cry thinks, baffled at the word. Who is ' _we'_? Who else is here with us? Is someone out there, lurking in the shadows and eavesdropping on us? The Anorak perhaps? Or maybe Pewdie?

"But you said–" he begins and is then cut off when Tesla looks away from him to glance at something at his side. She then murmurs something out of the corner of her mouth and he manages to hear, "Have you said that on purpose?"

Cry frowns, piqued by the accusatory tone in her voice, despite not understanding what she'd said, and opens his mouth to protest. He's interrupted once more when Tesla speaks again and to his shock and disbelief, her voice had somehow... _changed._

" _It just came out,_ " she is saying and it is _still_ Tesla's voice, the voice of a young fourteen-year-old girl, but there is something awfully different in the quality, in the tone of it. Even her expression has changed, her face twisting into something that isn't her own, like she had become a totally different person in the same body. " _It just came out,_ " she repeats in that strange state she's in. _"We hadn't meant to say 'pre-warning'. Or any kind of warning. Forget about that word. Forget we even said it. Just pretend we've no idea what he's talking about. Just tell him we're only giving him a heads-up. That's all. Don't say anything more. He'll find out soon enough."_

Oh, dear lord. What...? Cry wants to say but for some reason, he cannot form any words in his mouth. Tesla just continues speaking, unaware that Cry is staring at her with a mixture of fascination and horror.

"Coming here was _your_ idea." Tesla's normal voice returns. At least, if this _is_ her real one.

" _Yes, and we agreed on it,_ " The other voice says and it's strange, so damn _strange_ , to watch this young girl's face switch expressions so quickly and smoothly, like a pair of cards shuffling to and fro.

"And we've said a little too much. Like a Freudian slip. 'Pre-warning'. He might think it means something."

" _It doesn't matter now. It won't matter. Not for a while. Only a word. It's not going to change anything."_

"Alright, that's enough. Are you trying to scare him?"

" _No, we're not. Why are we still talking? We should stop."_

And she does. The moment she looks back up at him, her expression is neutral, carefully blank, as if whatever she'd been doing for the past minute never happened. "We're telling you a little of what's to come just so you might know what to expect," she tells him nonchalantly. "Just so you can make your decision sooner."

That snaps Cry out of his stupor. He shakes his head a little, trying to clear it, but he can't stop going over what he'd just seen. The bizarreness of the episode had made him forget what that odd one-sided conversation was even about though.

"What was that?" he finally says and his voice comes out as a whisper of disbelief. He thinks – 'We'? Oh god, who the hell was ' _we'_? Who had she been talking to? "Tesla, what _was_ that?"

"What are you talking about?" comes the young girl's response, brimmed with wide-eyed innocence. Then, her face distorts, twisting into something dark and harrowing, " _Did you see something_?"

Cry snaps his mouth shut, startled at the sudden change once more, and takes a step back, his hand clutching the strap of his shovel.

Tesla then repeats, in her 'normal' voice, "Well, you know a little of what to expect now. More to come later on. By then, you should know your answer."

Cry already knows what his reply will be but Tesla's words are making him unsure of it for some reason. Shakily, he manages to give the lock pick pouch tucked in his arm a pat. "But you gave me this though," he says pointedly and becomes surprised by the return of his own voice. "What if... I say no?"

"Then you're welcome to keep it," Tesla merely answers with a shrug of her shoulders. However, there is something in her expression that tells him she knows that isn't the case, that she already knows his final answer, that she knows what the outcome will be in the end.

Who...? Cry thinks, suddenly feeling an icy chill go down his spine at her quiet stare. No. What _are_ you, Tesla?

Then, like before, Tesla turns around and walks away without another word, leaving Cry to stare after her retreating back. The moment she disappears behind a corridor, he glances up and down the hall, wondering if there had been anyone out there who'd witnessed this with him. Somehow, he doesn't want anyone to know what he'd just experienced, doesn't want anyone to know about this unsettling conversation. He lets out the breath he doesn't know he'd been holding and clutches onto his shovel strap a little tighter, still feeling perturbed by the girl who had spoken to him in two voices not a minute ago.

Despite that though, it is what he had gathered from her that nags his mind the most. He and Pewdie are now _involved_ in this, getting in deep into the group. Who could have led them into that? Who _else_ could have let this happen? What the fuck have you gotten us into, Pewds? Cry casts a sharp glance at the general direction of the infirmary and makes a decision.

It's about time that he and Pewdie have a talk.

 

There are two people in the Fire House that Pewdie avoids.

The first is obviously the Anorak. Pewdie can't stand the man, can't stand being anywhere near him and his multi-coloured eyes, his gravelly voice and his fucked-up words. So he skirts away whenever he sees him within sight, knowing that if he were to hear a sentence come out of that man's mouth, Pewdie won't be able to stop himself from jumping in and starting another argument. He's smart enough to know that he shouldn't make any more enemies, shouldn't stir up trouble, shouldn't disturb the harmony in the Fire House. While he is still here, all he can do is to keep things good, to assure Doc and the others that he and Cry really mean no harm, that they are as equally friendly and welcoming to them too. With this in mind, he finds that it isn't so hard to fit into this laidback lifestyle of theirs and it is why he thinks he's mostly getting along well with the others – with the exception of the Anorak, of course.

The second person whom Pewdie avoids is Tesla.

He decides this after the first time they had spoken to each other on the afternoon following that first awkward dinner. Their encounter had been brief and fleeting and they had been the only ones awake in the lounge. Speed tended to fall asleep when the day got too hot and Pewdie had decided to leave him snoring on the stool in the mini-kitchen. There had been no one else around except for Tesla, who sat, curled up on the couch with her notebook, reading quietly to herself again. For a second, Pewdie had contemplated on leaving the room to search for any of the others but curiosity got the better of him. Tesla usually isn't around much and Pewdie thinks that it is about time that he should at least say hello to her. They have yet to speak to each other since he and Cry arrived after all.

"Hey," Pewdie says, approaching the occupied couch. "How's it goin'?"

When Tesla lifts her head to stare up at him, he continues on conversationally, "Does Speed do this a lot?" He waves a hand at the sleeping man's general direction. "I mean, one second he was talking about that time he swallowed marbles when he was, like, eight or something, and then the next, he's fast asleep."

Tesla blinks at him through her too-long fringe and says nothing. The silence is becoming a little unnerving. Pewdie is determined not to let that bother him.

"Uh, well, I guess that's Speed for you," he keeps on with his chatter instead. "I wonder if you know where the others are? Delta hasn't taken me to that fireman's pole yet. Have you been on it? I can't wait to slide down like they do in the movies."

He can see Tesla shifting her head to the side a little at his words and then saying in a quiet voice, "Why is he talking to us?"

Well, that's kind of rude, Pewdie wants to say and then maybe launch into a rant about young people needing to treat their elders with respect, but he doesn't get a chance to do so because something changes in Tesla's face. Pewdie has always thought there was something strange about the face, about the way the features didn't seem to add up, but now he can see that they are rearranging themselves. Once they settle into some sort of facial expression, Pewdie finds, to his shock, that he thinks he is no longer looking at Tesla, that he is looking at someone else.

" _What does he want?"_ Tesla says and – holy _fuck_ – her voice is somehow different, just like her face. In a flash of a second, she seems to have become an entirely different person altogether. " _Why is he talking to us?"_

Oh my god, Pewdie thinks, feeling lightheaded all of a sudden, feeling goose bumps pop up all over the skin of his wrist. What the _hell_?

"Just ignore him," the switch in face and voice is so swift and easy. It is like watching the performance of a one-man play. Like a single actor playing different roles all on the same stage. It was bizarre. It was unnerving. It was _frightening._

" _Yes. Ignore him,"_ the second voice – which Pewdie finds to be much creepier – recommends. _"Pretend we don't know what he's saying."_

"Not to worry. He doesn't know what he's saying."

" _Then we'll talk some more. Scare him a little."_

"No, just ignore him and maybe he'll go away."

" _And leave us alone."_

"And never try to talk to us ever again." At this, Tesla lifts her head up and fixes him a long stare. He flinches at what he sees. There is madness in her eyes. He looks away and his gaze falls onto the notebook in her hands. From this angle, Pewdie can see, as clear as day, that the pages are entirely blank. What had she been reading? Was she even reading at _all_?

An unpleasant chill goes down his spine at this realisation. The next thing he knows, he has backed away from the couch and fled the room, his heart pounding loudly in his ears.

Holy shit, holy _shit_ , he thinks as he continues to increase the distance between himself and the strange girl he'd been trying to talk to. What the fuck was that? What the fuck did I just see? Was she possessed? Or could it be... Yes, it's obvious. Her eyes, her face, her voice. Her head's not in the right place. Her mind–

He finds himself in his and Cry's empty room where he goes and collapses onto the floor, leaning back against his bunk bed. His mind whirls with frenzied thoughts, trying to make sense of what had happened, of what he'd experienced.

Something happened to her, he surmises. Something so horrible and traumatic made her mind snap and become like that. Had she been this way before? Or did this happen much later, after she'd seen and experienced the horrors outside these walls...? Did the others know about this? If they did, then why haven't they told him about it? Could this be why they don't mind her eluding their company all the time? Could this be why none of them even mentioned her condition?

Pewdie shudders unconsciously. Even the thought of bringing it up in conversation seems unsettling enough. Maybe that is why the others pretend that nothing is wrong, that they treat Tesla like a normal teenage girl, that they don't talk about it. Perhaps it is wise that he keeps this encounter to himself, just for now.

It isn't long before Pewdie feels an aching need for comfort, something to calm his mind from the shock. In the end, he finds himself reaching out for some form of support, someone whom he can share this with at that moment, but Cry is nowhere to be seen right now. Instead, his hand slips under his pillow and bed sheets, fingers groping for the only things he has left with him. He pulls them out, dumps them unceremoniously on his lap and stares.

After ten minutes of silent staring, Map suddenly pipes up from its position of being draped across his knee. "What do you think you're doing?" it asks in a hard tone.

Pewdie is startled at the question. "What am I doing? What am I doing?" he yelps and desperately casts a look at Torchy, propped up on the floor before him. "Torchy, what _am_ I doing?"

"...You're talking," Torchy squeaks hesitantly, as if it doesn't want to disclose the truth to him.

"Of _course_ I'm talking," Pewdie states, feeling irritation starting to bubble in his chest.

Torchy says, "You're talking. To _us._ "

Pewdie sighs exasperatedly, feeling tempted to kick the flashlight away from him with his foot, " _Duh._ Because there's no one else, of course."

"Do you know what we are?" Map asks in that same matter-of-factly tone it always uses.

"Yeah, you're a map that can't even give directions and a flashlight that's wimpier than a wimp," Pewdie answers and his voice comes out sharp and snappish in quality. He isn't sure why he is feeling agitated and anxious all of a sudden. He must still be shaken by that encounter with Tesla. Yes, that must be it.

"Pewdie," Map says again, slowly this time. "Do you know _what_ we are?"

And Pewdie looks, looks long and hard at the battered little booklet on his knee and the propped up flashlight near his shoe. His heartbeat is loud in his ears as he accepts the horrifying reality of it. He tells them, "You're not real."

Then, he says, "I _know_ this. I know you're not real. Somewhere along the way, it just came to be like this. But I'm not like Tesla. I don't change. I don't suddenly act like I'm a different person. I still have my senses, my head. I haven't snapped. I'm still me." He pauses and thinks back to everything that has happened to him so far, thinks back to the moment when the world ended and turned silent and he was alone in a rented car, trapped in a country that wasn't his own, in a reality too absurd to be real.

It had been fine to do this sort of thing, to give voices to inanimate objects and then to have conversations with them, with yourself, in the past. It was easy to brush it off as something funny and not take it seriously. But now, after seeing Tesla and her strange transformation like that, Pewdie feels, for the first time, doubt rearing its head in the back of his mind. It is asking him: _What do you think you look like when you talk to things? When you talk with different voices to yourself? Do you ever wonder if you might have looked just like Tesla? Are you sure you haven't cracked yet?_

I'm not possessed, Pewdie tells himself determinedly. I'm not crazy. I'm not like Tesla.

Silently, he gathers up the map and flashlight, shoves them back under his pillow and promptly leaves the room.

Tesla had been right though. He never tried speaking to her ever again after that.

He also cannot find the courage to ask about her to anyone else in the group, not even Speed, whom he'd taken a liking to and got along well with. He'd always thought there was just something nostalgic about the other man, something that reminded him of the friends he used to have back home. Speed's open, jovial nature is welcoming and warm and Pewdie also likes that the other man is very considerate of others – he doubts he'll ever forget Speed's kind and thoughtful gesture of giving him and Cry his bowl of noodles to eat when they'd first arrived.

Overall, what Pewdie likes about Speed most distinctively is that he seems _unchanged_ , like an everlasting remnant from the world before this one, because unlike the others, Speed had admitted that he'd never killed anything in his life, not even a single zombie. It isn't as if he is afraid of the idea of killing, it just isn't in his nature to fight. Instead, Speed prefers shelter, safety, security and the support of good friends. He believes in the idea that staying together as a group would therefore reinforce those factors, making them an unstoppable force.

Pewdie understands this, of course, because he stands by the principle too. Believes that staying together and looking after your partner or group is the most important thing to him.

It's a little strange to still live by that principle when Cry isn't talking to him at the moment. After their last dispute, the other man had shut him out. He'd been very distant and aloof during the dinner that followed as he barely talked, choosing instead to sit and stare blankly at the table while quietly finishing his portion of food. He'd then excused himself afterwards and left without another glance at him and Pewdie felt his face heating up in embarrassment when the others' eyes lingered on him questioningly. There was no point in hiding the bad air between himself and Cry now. Pewdie remembers waiting for the prodding questions to start flying in his direction, but thankfully, no one made any attempt to do so and carried on as if they hadn't seen anything.

In the end, after a lengthy post-dinner chat, Pewdie had dragged himself back to bed and lay there in the dark, staring up at the underside of Cry's bunk, listening to the other man's soft snoring and thinking of what to do. His mind brought him back to the dispute, to the moment he'd pushed Cry far enough that he'd then broken that stony, unresponsive wall of his. He'd thought about Cry and the cold anger in his eyes. About Cry refusing to listen to him and then snarling out bitter, sharp words that _hurt_ because what Pewdie had wanted to say to him was important. It was so important to him and Cry had casted it carelessly aside.

He remembers a quiet sort of anger simmering in his chest at the recollection of that event. Eventually, he'd then given in to the idea that there was no use in him trying to force Cry to open up when the other man was already shutting him out like this. Was Pewdie really in the wrong when he tried to explain his actions earlier that evening because it was much too soon? Was it really wrong of him to want them to be okay again?

Thinking about Cry so much like this hurt Pewdie's head so he'd forced himself to turn away from the other man's bunk to settle onto his side. The next morning, he remembers rising early and spending almost ten minutes debating with himself on whether or not he should leave another note. In the end, he'd tossed that idea and left, frustrated and angry for lingering too long by Cry's bunk, for thinking too much about Cry's wellbeing, and was grateful to find Delta and Vegas already in the kitchen, bickering about whether or not to have instant noodles for breakfast.

Having Speed and the others for company turned out to be a welcome distraction to the troubles between himself and Cry. It at least kept him away from the other man, giving him the space he needed to come around and anyway, Pewdie admits that he wants nothing more than to spend some time away from him, even if it is for a little while. But, even in spite of that, Cry continues to remain in the back of his mind like a stubborn ghost haunting him. Once, when Pewdie carelessly let his thoughts wander, he wonders where Cry might be, whether he is still distancing himself from everyone, whether he is alright on his own without Pewdie like this.

Then, his mind wanders much too far. It suddenly begins playing with the idea that he will one day walk into their empty room and find a note in Cry's handwriting that says, _I'm done. I'm leaving. Goodbye._

(If Cry leaves, Pewdie will never, ever forgive himself.)

He never notices just how anxious he is after that thought until Speed gives him a pat on the shoulder one day and says, "Did you hear? From Delta? He tells me Cry's been a big help with fixing the wall."

"What?" Pewdie hadn't expected this at all. He'd expected Cry to shut himself in their room after that awkward dinner's performance, not be out and about, mingling with the others. He wants to ask Speed more about it but doesn't get the chance to when Vegas reaches over and nicks the bag of crisps out of Speed's hand.

It is on an evening while he is playing cards with Speed, Barbetta and Doc that Barbetta says to Speed, "It's amazing that after nearly how many weeks, you don't show any signs of improving. Even Cry has shown more promise at table soccer than you could ever have."

Pewdie nearly drops his cards at the mention of the name. "...C-Cry?" he stutters.

Barbetta nods and nonchalantly clarifies, "I challenged him some time ago. That was before I asked him to go and fetch the Anorak from his Watch shift."

"Cry..." Pewdie can't understand why he is having a hard time believing this. "... played table soccer with...?"

"Yes," Barbetta replies. If she'd noticed the disbelief in his voice, she doesn't mention it. "And Doc gave him some tips on the game while we played. Tips that Speed could never seem to stick to if he wants to have a chance at winning anything."

"Hey, that's not really true," Speed whines before he reaches over to gently nudge Doc by the shoulder with his wrist. "I _do_ follow your tips, Doc. Don't let 'Betta tell you otherwise. And what? Cry's a better table soccer player than me? We'll see about that."

The suspense is killing him. Pewdie has no idea how Cry has been coping since their dispute and even when they do sometimes see each other before going to bed, Pewdie's muttered utterances of goodnight before he turns in doesn't count as an enquiry into Cry's current wellbeing. In the end, he finds himself blurting out, albeit incoherently because his words are all over the place, "You talked to Cry...? Even after – how did you – why would – is he alright? Is he doing okay? I mean. Um–"

He flushes red under the trio's stares, feeling silly for his sudden garbled speech, and pretends to be busy examining the playing cards in his hands.

"Cry is doing fine," Doc eventually speaks, making Pewdie lift his head in surprise. He finds the other man smiling kindly at him. "From what I've seen, he seems to be settling in well."

Then maybe he won't leave, Pewdie's mind whispers eagerly to him. If he's settling in alright, he might not leave.

Pewdie has never felt so relieved at the thought. As the weight of anxiety lifts from his chest, he takes a moment to watch the three people before him. It occurs to him then that Pewdie isn't the only one making an effort to keep the relations between Cry, himself and this group of people on a good level. Doc and the others must have been doing the same thing too, trying to get him and Cry settled in, trying to make them both feel safe and welcomed and at home.

When he thinks about it, about how much kindness these people had offered them, how much trust they had put on them not to turn against them at any point during this stay, he can feel his heart swelling with gratitude. He appreciates this, all of this, being here in this one safe lighthouse amidst an ocean of zombies and death, with a host of people kind enough to let them stay. He wants to say thank you to them but for some reason, he finds it hard. A long time ago, it was too easy to express his gratitude to the people who watched his videos and supported him over the years. Right now, he somehow can't find it in him to form the words. Maybe he thinks words aren't just good enough anymore.

During that same card game though, Pewdie had retreated a little to the side after losing all his cards and decided to furtively peek at the ones in Speed's hand instead. It is then when the door to the room opens and the Anorak saunters in.

"You're busy," he says, noticing the card game. Pewdie thinks he is going to retreat and come back another time but the other man catches his eye for a second – making Pewdie tense by reflex – and a flicker of emotion flashes across his face, too fast for Pewdie to read. He then takes a couple of steps forward, coming closer to their table and fixes his multi-coloured gaze onto his teammates.

"A change in plans," he announces. "About the date of the next op."

"Oh?" Doc says interestedly. Speed blinks at the news while Barbetta remains as unfazed as always.

"They said the day after tomorrow is good," the Anorak elaborates. "There's a likelihood of a storm coming. Little chance of anyone seeing or hearing us."

"Have we decided on a way in yet?" Barbetta asks, calmly averting her smooth, butterfly-flight gaze from her cards to the men around her.

The Anorak forms an expression that almost looks thoughtful before he answers, "There's Delta's way via the roof or through Tesla's underground tunnel."

"Isn't the tunnel the best way?" Speed pipes up, reaching up to scratch his bearded jaw. "It's the more direct route."

"It's infested. And locked on the other side," the Anorak points out and somewhere in that tone, Pewdie thinks he's hearing: _You can't seriously be this clueless. How much of an idiot are you?_ As predicted, the words just make him clench his jaw unconsciously in irritation.

"Although," the Anorak then adds like an afterthought, tilting his head a little and making the light overhead catch the blue and brown colours of his eyes. "Delta seemed uncharacteristically in favour of using that tunnel route."

"What, for _him_?" Speed says incredulously, as if Delta picking any kind of route that didn't involve jumping across rooftops seems like a ridiculous notion to him.

"Oh, no," the Anorak replies and once again, his gaze catches Pewdie's only for a fleeting second. "Not for him."

A myriad of thoughts immediately assault Pewdie's mind. Thoughts like: What the _hell_ , man? What is he saying? Why is he looking at me like that why is he even looking at me at _all_ oh he's trying to get at me again trying to get under my skin trying to fuck with me I just know it _god_ he's such an asshole I really don't like him–

And automatically, he opens his mouth, about to throw the Anorak a curse or two, but surprisingly, he is able to stop himself in time. Knowing that there is no point in starting an argument as a confrontation will get him nowhere, Pewdie grips the edges of his chair instead, trying to force himself not to snap at the Anorak although he isn't sure for what specific reason except for the fact that the guy was a dick. He almost congratulates himself for his self-control when he keeps his mouth shut up to the point when the Anorak finally leaves the room to let them continue their card game. Only then does he let himself relax once the other man is out of sight.

Pewdie has heard about this 'next op' once before, of course. He remembers it being briefly mentioned by Delta some time ago, remembers the other man's enthusiasm for seeing Pewdie and Cry in action. Pewdie hadn't taken the suggestion seriously that time and really, after spending just a few days in Delta's company, it was hard to take anything seriously from that man. However, he doesn't expect that this 'next op' will be happening quite so soon.

He doesn't think to pry into the details of the group's plan though, seeing that he and Cry won't be involved in it. He has a feeling that they'd been planning this for a while, even before his and Cry's arrival, so he keeps quiet when the topic is mentioned again the next day. Despite this, it doesn't stop Pewdie from overhearing some things about the op though – like the fact that it will include the use of Delta's firecrackers as a means of distraction, that the location they are about to go to is about two to three miles away and following the river upstream, that the plan sounds suspiciously _unlike_ a supply run because supply runs don't involve creating distractions and sneaking into other survivor camps.

Frankly, Pewdie isn't sure what to feel about the idea of stealing though. Before this chaos, he would have disliked it, would have disagreed on it automatically. Now, he'd grudgingly come to accept it as something inevitable, a necessary evil, and understandably so especially in a town like this one, dry and dead and deprived of anything useful.

On more than one occasion, Pewdie had thought about interfering, had debated on maybe giving Doc and the others some help by offering them his insight on the matter. But something – something subconscious in the back of his mind that speaks with Cry's voice – stops him from doing so, sternly reminds him not to get involved. When he thinks about it though, there is nothing wrong with choosing to pitch in his share of help to these people. Yet, why is he hesitating instead of doing so when he knows that Cry, if he ever hears of this, will say no? Why _should_ he hesitate anyway? Why is it that he still needs to follow everything that Cry might say even after his confrontation with the other man?

Because I'm still willing to trust his judgement, Pewdie justifies in the end. As long as he gives me a good reason for it, I'll always listen. I'll listen to Cry. Because without him, I wouldn't have gotten this far.

With that thought in mind, Pewdie decides to keep quiet for the moment.

Once he finishes helping Speed update the inventory of the Fire House's medical supplies in the infirmary that night (apparently, they are running very low on a lot of things), Pewdie decides that it's really late and that he should turn in. He passes Barbetta by the infirmary door on his way out and after muttering a brief goodnight to her, he manages to hear her say to Speed: "We've been asked to go to the library. It's about the next op tomorrow night. Tesla says she wants to make a suggestion about who to send down that tunnel."

Just as Pewdie walks back from the infirmary to his and Cry's room, it suddenly occurs to him that they have been staying at the Fire House for five days already. Five days. He never noticed how much time had passed since they'd first arrived, exhausted and desperate for drink. He wonders how long this will last before they will leave it all and thinks – Yeah, I'm definitely gonna miss this place.

Once he enters the room, he reaches out to switch on the light but changes his mind a second later, hearing Cry's steady breathing as the other man sleeps from his top bunk. Pewdie then shuts the door, plunging the room into darkness. Instinctively, his hand reaches into his pocket for Torchy before he realises that he'd left his flashlight under his pillow.

After a couple of unsteady steps into the gloom before him, he thinks he should have almost reached his bunk by now and that's when his foot trips over something on the ground. He stumbles and loses his footing, swearing aloud in Swedish, and hits the floor hard with a crash. Pain jolts through his limbs, paralysing him; the fall knocks the air out of him. He gasps sharply.

There is a violent rustling of bed sheets above him and then Cry's voice calls down from the top bunk, sounding a little groggy but very much alarmed. "Pewds? Is that you? Fucking hell, where _are_ you? Pewds? _Pewds?_ "

Pewdie groans in response, feeling his cheeks burn in shame at his fall. He rolls over to his side and paws at the object by his feet, trying to find whatever it is that had tripped him. He feels the rubbery sole of another boot and realises that it must be Cry's. Groaning again, Pewdie rolls onto his back, waiting for the pain from his fall to fade away. Goddammit, he thinks to himself. I am not walking in the fucking dark again.

He thinks he hears a soft pattering of feet climbing down wooden rungs and then cries out when he feels one of them step on his leg. Something heavy and warm collapses on top of him, knocking the air out of his lungs for the second time.

"Owww..." he moans, his voice coming out muffled. "Get... off me..."

"Is that you?" Cry's voice sounds off from somewhere close to his left side. Pewdie is able to breathe again when Cry lifts himself off his chest, "Geez, man. What the hell happened?"

"Your stupid shoes," Pewdie scolds, squinting at the darkness in front of him. He thinks he can discern a human shaped shadow crouching before him and an arm lifts to scratch the back of a head.

"You didn't see where you were going?" Cry says and Pewdie frowns.

"It was dark," Pewdie tells him. "How was I supposed to see anything?"

"You could always turn on the lights," Cry points out.

"You were sleeping," Pewdie shoots back.

"That shouldn't stop you, you know."

"No, but it would have been insensitive of me."

"I wouldn't have minded."

"Yeah, well, why the fuck did you leave your shoes on the floor anyway?" Pewdie decides to change the topic and bring up the real culprit of this incident.

"Sorry," Cry says, surprising Pewdie by sounding sincere and apologetic. "I shouldn't have dumped them there."

There is a brief silence before the other man breaks it with a loud, irritated huff. "Look, are you okay or _what_?" he asks rather sulkily, like he doesn't want to sound too concerned. "You didn't twist an ankle or anything?"

"I hope not," Pewdie murmurs and immediately feels around his ankles, flexing them thoroughly before poking and prodding the skin. Fortunately, nothing seems to be wrong with them. He can still feel some pain thrumming in his limbs from where they had made contact with the floor but he doubts the fall had left anything worse than some bruise marks.

"I'm alright," Pewdie decides to report his findings to the waiting and unmoving shadow before him and thinks he sees a pair of shoulders relax a little at his answer. He almost smiles. Almost.

"Good," says Cry and then Pewdie remembers that Cry had tripped over him as well.

"Are _you_ alright?" he asks in return, trying to discern anything else in the darkness but to no avail. "I mean, you fell too."

"Yeah. On _you,_ " Cry answers and there's a hint of mock-accusation in his tone. He then adds, a little more gently this time, "No, no. I'm okay."

They fall into another silence and it is then when Pewdie realises that they are, in fact, talking to each other again. However, the last time this happened, Pewdie had thought they were good that he'd tried to explain himself for his actions, only succeeding in breaking him and Cry apart once more and leading them to this mutual indifference to one another. All in all, it was always too easy to initiate some casual conversation and fall back into some semblance of normalcy, but if one toe happens to step out of line during that stage, the whole thing would collapse just as quickly. He anxiously wonders – Will it be the same again this time around as well?

It's hard, so, so hard, having to tread on eggshells when he and Cry are like this. What Pewdie really wants is for them to be able to walk together with nothing holding them back.

"Um," Pewdie says as their silence continues to the point of becoming awkward. If they have nothing to say to each other, then he thinks it best that they just part. "I'm going to bed now." He moves to get up.

Cry suddenly shifts out of his stillness. "Wait a second," he says, a note of urgency in his voice.

Pewdie pauses, settling back down on the floor and looks at him. He can't see anything in this darkness except for Cry's silhouette and even that is faint and barely there. "What's wrong?" he asks.

"There's something I want to ask you," Pewdie hears a tremor in the other man's voice, as if he's trying to contain some sort of emotion. "Did you hear about their plan?" Cry begins, going straight to the point. "This 'next op' that they've been talking about?"

Pewdie raises his eyebrows in mild surprise, although he doubts Cry will be able to see them. Of course, Cry would have heard about this plan too. It wasn't as if Doc and the others were keeping it a secret after all. "Yeah, I heard. What about it?" he says.

Cry doesn't reply immediately but the silence he gives instead is hesitant, as if he is trying to find the right words to say, perhaps words that won't disrupt this already amiable air between them. Pewdie absently wishes he can at least discern the expression on Cry's face so that he has an inkling of what this is going to be about. He waits.

It is almost half a minute of silence later that an increasingly agitated Pewdie naturally begins to come up with some sort of speculation as to what is going on when it looks like Cry isn't going to be answering him anytime sooner. From what he'd gathered so far, it's obvious to him that the other man is trying to tell him something, but what? Could it be something to do with the next op? Some secret he'd uncovered? Why is he taking so long to do so? What could he be thinking? At once, Pewdie recalls back to a particular expression he'd once seen on Cry's face, at the time when he'd discovered that their belongings had been stolen. An expression of unease and discomfort, like Cry had done something that Pewdie had yet to know.

And then, it strikes him. Could it be that...? "Did you...?" Unthinkingly, recklessly, he then throws out his assumption in disbelief. "You got us _involved_?"

Something seems to snap in the air after he says this. When he hears Cry inhale sharply at his words, Pewdie suddenly realises that he had said the wrong thing to him. Again.

" _Oh_ ," comes Cry's voice, suddenly sounding bitter, brimming with barely concealed rage. Pewdie can feel the heat of the other man's glare on him in the darkness. "Oh, _I_ see. I _see,_ " Cry says."So you're trying to turn the tables here, aren't you?"

"I..." Shit, Pewdie curses, faltering a little in his speech, unsure of how to fix this. Did he have to sound so accusatory? Now, the air between them had soured so quickly that he can feel himself cringing in it. He tries again, "What I meant to say–"

"Yeah, you meant to accuse me first so you won't feel so guilty about it afterwards," Cry fills in the rest of his sentence rather brashly and Pewdie finds himself frowning, not liking the sarcasm in Cry's tone. 'Guilty'? He latches onto the word, knowing that he'd just missed something important. What did Cry mean by 'guilty'? Why would Pewdie feel 'guilty'?

"Just what the hell are you talking about?" Pewdie asks aloud.

"'You got us involved'?" Cry reminds him, the bitterness still apparent in his voice. "I can't believe you would accuse me of that first when we both know which one of us is cosier with the others."

"What are you talking about? Accuse you of _what_ exactly?" Pewdie is confused and a little angry that this is even happening. He wishes he'd been a little less reckless with his words, wishes he hadn't triggered this latest collapse of their initially friendly ambience. He curses himself inwardly for it again, knowing that it still won't help him with their situation now.

"Don't give me that crap," he then hears Cry reply with a huff of impatience. "Just admit it. You must've offered us up without asking me first, just like the last time. Or maybe, you said something to them and they thought it would be a good idea to put us in their grand plan."

Pewdie stares, momentarily taken aback by this new discovery. " _What._ "

Cry makes another noise of impatience. "You want to go and explain yourself?" he then says snappishly. He seems unsatisfied by Pewdie's answer and Pewdie manages to catch a glimpse of the other man crossing his arms, as if ready to disapprove everything he will say. "Come on then. Let's hear it."

Pewdie doesn't quite understand what is going on and how Cry had even come up with such an accusation. He knows he should be asking the other man to elaborate things further for him but by then, he'd already felt himself shrink back a little, suddenly defensive of his situation. Cry has no right to corner him in this manner. No right at all.

"Maybe _you_ should explain yourself," he tells him firmly as he stands his ground, refusing to cower from Cry's wrath this time. "What's the big deal with you jumping on me with something like this? I didn't do anything."

"'The big deal'?" Cry echoes, sharp and biting, before he then lets loose a flood of words: "Here's what the big deal is – the fact that _we're_ going to help these guys steal supplies from another camp. Dammit _._ Why didn't you ask me first? You're _supposed_ to talk to me about this _first_. I mean, do you even know what you'd gotten us into? We're not supposed to be part of this. It isn't our business to mix with their affairs. We already have a plan. We don't need to be involved in anything. Do you even understand that? I mean, of all people, I expected _you_ to – I don't even understand it, man. Unless you – Just... just _why,_ huh?Why the hell did you do it?"

"What the hell did I _do_ exactly?" Pewdie growls out after that rather incoherent rant, feeling a horrible sort of pressure pressing down on his chest.

"You got us _involved_ ," Cry bottom-lines it slowly, stealing Pewdie's own words again as he does it.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Pewdie is getting tired of the accusations. He glares angrily at the shadow sitting before him. "You point fingers at me but you haven't even told me what I specifically _did_ for this thing to happen!"

"You got us _involved_ ," Cry repeats emphatically, as if this is what matters to him the most.

"But I didn't do a fucking thing!" Pewdie almost screeches back, recognising that Cry has failed once again to give him a true answer and that this is looking a little pointless, that they're not cooperating, not trying to line up the facts together in order to figure out the whole story. That they're stumbling in the dark, throwing jabs at each other and missing out the important details. That they're just running around in circles, blind to the actual truth.

"Well, you must have done _something_ ," Cry says persistently in protest to Pewdie's claim. "Because they only thought about making us a nice addition to their gang just today."

"And what does that have anything to do with me?" Fuck, I shouldn't have said that, Pewdie thinks regretfully because in his defence, he'd thrown this repetitive utterance back at Cry without thinking. Back to square one again.

"Well, who _else_ would put us up for grabs?" Cry shoots back, a note of dreadful finality in his voice.

And that startles Pewdie for a second, mostly because he hadn't expected the pang of hurt to hit him in the chest from Cry's words.

" _What_?" he gapes at the other man, slowly becoming outraged with disbelief. Why would you even _think_ that? He wants to say, wants to shout this out to Cry. He wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him and ask him whether Cry really hates him so much after what happened that it becomes so easy for the latter to suspect and accuse him, Pewdie, for every mishap. He wants to ask Cry whether the other man even knows that when Pewdie spends time with Doc and company, he cannot help but think and worry over Cry's wellbeing because he is fucking scared that he will find the room they're sharing to be empty one day and that Cry is long gone. God, he wants to say a lot of things.

But he doesn't say or do any of them. Pewdie had practiced self-control and the act of holding his tongue well enough thanks to some of the unavoidable encounters with the Anorak. So he forces himself to clear his head and turns to thinking instead. What exactly is Cry trying to do here? He ponders. Because just laying the blame of this mess on him seems a little superficial. No, Cry must be trying to get to the bottom of this and, of course, it is understandable that he would assume Pewdie to be the culprit. Somewhere along the way though, the initial investigation had turned instead into a match between Cry shooting accusations and Pewdie trying to evade the blows.

"Wait," Pewdie says, calmly and much more composed this time, and Cry interrupts him with a harsh, "Since this is _your_ fault, you should go back and tell them we don't want–" but by then, Pewdie has had enough.

"Shut _up_ for a second, will you?" he snaps, trying to put as much authority as he can into his voice. He also holds a hand up to emphasise his point but realises that neither of them can see it in the dark. Before Cry can argue any further, Pewdie quickly continues on, "Look, this is some kind of misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding–?" Cry repeats, sounding as if he is on the verge of throwing another accusing remark.

"Just calm the fuck down, _geez_ ," Pewdie snaps again, impatiently this time. "Can you just _listen_? We're not going anywhere if we're like this, just yapping at each other like dogs."

"So what exactly do you suggest, oh Genius Pewds?" Cry asks mockingly.

Pewdie rolls his eyes in response, knowing that the other man wouldn't be able to see them. "Really? Sarcasm isn't helping this situation."

"And the fact that you're stalling isn't helping too," Cry retaliates.

"Just tell me everything you know," Pewdie demands him seriously.

Cry is quiet for a second. " _No_ ," he says stubbornly and Pewdie thinks, this is it. I'm done. If Cry won't listen, then I'm done. I'm leaving and going to bed. Fuck this. But he's surprised when Cry adds, " _You_ tell me everything you know _._ "

Finally, _finally,_ there is agreement on Cry's side. Somehow, Pewdie finds himself a little grateful that they've been arguing in the dark. If he is able to see the expressions of accusation and hostility on Cry's face or the guardedness and obstinacy in his stance if this situation had occurred with the lights on, he doesn't think he'd be able to take control of the course of this dispute and try to lead them back on track.

"Fine _,"_ Pewdie sighs resignedly and tells him. He tells him how long he'd known about the existence of this next op, his reluctance to pry for details and some inevitable eavesdropping thanks to the group's openness about the topic. He tells him that he'd known that this plan was going to involve stealing, that the way into the camp was going to be through an underground tunnel, and that the op was supposed to happen tomorrow night.

Throughout his description, Pewdie had expected Cry to interrupt him at some point but is surprised when the other man maintains his silence until he finishes. He then waits for a response but nothing comes to him from the darkness.

Eventually, Pewdie asks, "What's up with you, man?" Because Pewdie doesn't do silence, and that he finds it hard to speak to someone whose face he can't even see. Because Cry doesn't usually fall into quietness so often like this unless something is wrong.

That seems to startle Cry back into speaking. "Wha–? Nothing," he says insistently. "I was just thinking about what you said before you came back here. You said Barbetta wanted Speed to go to the library because Tesla had something to say."

Pewdie blinks. "What about it?"

He hears the other man let out a sigh. "I... met her outside the room," Cry says. "Maybe about an hour or two ago. She'd been waiting for me. She was the one who told me about the op. About the fact that we were going to be in on it."

"Barbetta cornered you outside?" Pewdie says, frowning a little in bewilderment at the thought. He almost wants to make a lewd, suggestive joke out of it but drops the idea in the end.

"No," Cry corrects and then there is an odd, hesitant pause before he reveals: "It was Tesla." And somewhere in the silence that followed, Pewdie has a strange feeling that Cry is waiting for him to react to the name.

And he does. He does react to it, flinching a little when memories of his unsettling encounter with Tesla return to him, but he's grateful that they can't see each other in the dark. As Pewdie stares at Cry's silhouette before him, it occurs to him whether the other man might know about the girl's strange behaviour. Briefly, he entertains the idea of talking about her with Cry, about what could have possibly happened to her, about the fact that she is like two people inhabiting the same body, about how her condition disturbed and frightened him.

Except that Pewdie stops himself and cringes away from that intention in the end. Thinking about Tesla would only make him think about his own situation, about his tendency to talk to inanimate objects, about his own sanity. And he certainly does not want to discuss that with Cry.

In the end, he decides to pretend that nothing is wrong. "Tesla cornered you?" he says, trying to keep his voice levelled and unaffected by the name. "She said we were going to be in on the plan? What exactly are we going to be doing?"

"We won't be doing the stealing," Cry replies after a moment which sounds like he'd been listening to Pewdie's answer carefully. Afterwards, he seems to think that nothing is wrong because his voice begins to take on a more casual note. "We're going into the camp to create some sort of distraction."

"The firecrackers," Pewdie says, recalling that piece of detail. "And Tesla says she's going to send us down some tunnel, right?"

"Wait, what?" Cry says sharply, and Pewdie can make out his shadow perking up in attention. " _Tesla_ is sending us into the tunnel? Like this was _her_ idea?"

Pewdie purses his lips thoughtfully, trying to remember what he'd heard. "It was what Barbetta said before I left the infirmary not too long ago," he explains. "You know, right before I came back in here. She said something like, 'Tesla wants to make a suggestion about who to send down that tunnel'."

"Were those..." Cry says slowly, as if he is trying hard to digest what he'd just heard. "Were those the _exact_ words?"

"I'm pretty sure they were..." Pewdie confirms tentatively, wondering what it is that Cry is trying to get to. "What's the matter?"

"'Suggestion'," Cry repeats that particular word, rolling it over his tongue like he is trying to peel back the layers of meaning contained in it. "Tesla. She mentioned something like that to me too. I thought it was weird at first and didn't think too much of it. But now..."

"What are you talking about?" Pewdie says. He can almost feel something rising in the dark, a feeling that they are on the verge of a breakthrough.

"Tesla met me about an hour or so ago," Cry states with an air of lining up his facts. "She said to me, 'We will wait for the time to make a suggestion'. _You_ came in here not too long ago and Barbetta said to Speed that Tesla was going to make a suggestion about who to send down the–"

But Pewdie is already quickly catching up to Cry, his eyes widening with realisation. "You don't think–"

"–That it was _Tesla_ who put us up?" Cry finishes for him. His voice seems to be trembling a little at the deduction. "That when she came to see me, the others haven't considered our involvement in their plan yet? That she waited until _after_ she told me about it to _then_ drop the suggestion on them?"

Pewdie then says in a musing tone, "I don't understand. Why would she do something like that?" He can't help but notice that there's something strange about the timing of all this – to be precise, that Tesla would tell Cry about the plan and their roles in it in advance, even _before_ Pewdie and Cry could make any kind of decision, and even _before_ Doc and the others could consider the possibility of their involvement in the op. "I mean," he adds. "Why would she–"

"I'm not sure," Cry quickly replies and Pewdie guesses that the other man must have been thinking the same thing, having noticed this pattern as well. "I can't figure out a motive. Or what she's really up to. Or what she wants out of all of this. Maybe her reasons could have been personal. Maybe she doesn't like us and wants to kill us. Or maybe it could be because of convenience. That she wants to make sure this plan will work and does things like this in advance so that everything goes her way. Maybe it's that she thinks we're the only ones who can go through that tunnel."

Something the Anorak said once before makes Pewdie sit up a little straighter. "The tunnel is infested. And locked on the other side," he recites excitedly.

" _Oh_ ," Cry says in understanding. "That's right. That's fucking _right._ Only _we_ can go through a tunnel full of zombies. And _I'm_ the only one who can get through all that _and_ pick the lock on the door."

Pewdie cannot help but let out a derisive laugh at the idea. "When you think about it, it seems too convenient, too coincidental," he points out. "You know. Us arriving here in time for this next op thing to take place."

"Yeah, no shit," Cry agrees, sounding breathless with disbelief.

There is a period of contemplative silence after this, the both of them buried deep in thought at what had transpired, at how their pieces of the puzzle had finally fitted together to show them the big picture. Pewdie also thinks of another thing as they share this peacefulness together – a sense of satisfied accomplishment at what they'd achieved. They had both willingly tried to set aside their differences in order to figure out what was going on, and that cooperating like this is slowly repairing the gap between them.

Sometime later, Cry breaks the silence with an apology. "I'm sorry. For accusing you."

Pewdie automatically beams, lips stretching into a wide grin at Cry's words, and feels a rush of delight flooding into his chest. He reaches out to give the other man a friendly slap on the shoulder – a habit he had unconsciously picked up from Speed – but because he can't see much, he misses. His palm meets mostly air except for his thumb, which knocks against something solid.

Cry reels back, yelping angrily, "That was my _chin_!"

"Oh, sorry," Pewdie murmurs apologetically, wanting to pat the inflicted area except he doesn't know where Cry's chin is amidst this darkness.

"Ugh, this is stupid," he then hears Cry mutter. "Stumbling around in the dark and tripping over things like this. Where's the goddamn light?"

He sees Cry's silhouette climb to its feet and assumes for a second that the other man is going to switch the room lights on. Instead, Cry seems to be fumbling with something on Pewdie's bunk before he comes back and drops down next to him on the floor. There is a click and a beam of light bursts into existence, blinding them both with its brilliance for a moment.

Once Pewdie's squinting eyes start to adjust, the first thing he sees is Cry's face, illuminated by the flashlight in his hands. The other man had left his glasses in his bunk but that isn't the reason why it is making Pewdie unable to look away. Instead, it is as if he is seeing Cry for the very first time. In a way, that is the case. Pewdie hadn't been able to look at Cry directly for days, hadn't spoken to him for just as long. Now, as he looks at the other man sitting there, he realises just how much he _misses_ Cry, regardless of what had happened between them. He misses Cry's company, misses listening to his voice, misses playing videogames with him, misses working together with him, sharing meals and trading jokes with him. He even misses Cry's stupid single-mindedness and his acute sense of purpose, of wanting to keep on moving and not looking back. He misses Cry a _lot._

And it's embarrassing to even realise that it's only been a few days since they last spoke to each other and besides, Cry is still around in the compound, still within physical reach. It's embarrassing to even admit to himself that he misses Cry like this at all.

Cry is blinking at him, probably still trying to adjust his sight too while Pewdie undergoes this realisation. Soon after, he suddenly seems to shrink back a little, his face contorting into an uneasy expression, his eyes darting here and there.

"W-What is it?" he mumbles to Pewdie. "Is... Is there something on my face? Um. Shit." He then reaches up and scrubs his face self-consciously with a palm.

And that's when Pewdie realises with a start that he'd been staring at Cry all this time since Torchy's light came on, realises that his face had been burning with embarrassment due to his epiphany. Cry must have seen his wide-eyed expression, must have seen the flush on his cheeks and made something of it. Already Pewdie can see a redness begin to creep up the other man's neck and onto the rest of his face, courtesy of the effect of his scrutiny. He looks away, ashamed at the discomfiture he'd caused.

After a while, Pewdie asks, "What are we going to do, Cry?" but he already knows what the other man's answer is going to be.

Cry lets out a sigh. "We tell them 'no', of course," he gives the reply, as predicted. "Tell them that we can't help them."

Pewdie doesn't agree to it immediately though. Instead, he takes a second to think about it carefully. "It sounds to me that our role in this seems pretty vital," he points out, intending to be objective about this. "If someone doesn't go into that camp and cause a distraction first, nothing is going to work for them."

He sees Cry frown a little. "I don't see why Delta can't do it," he comments. "I mean, I don't know if he can pick locks but isn't he capable of sneaking in anywhere? They can always reconsider entering the place via the roof."

"Maybe it's too dangerous," Pewdie voices out his speculations. "Maybe there are snipers on the roof and that the best way to get in is via underground. It makes sense why they would want to use it. Even if the people from that other camp know about the tunnel, they'll just assume it's impossible to get through because of the zombies. They won't expect anyone coming in that way."

"Yeah, but does it really have to be us?" Cry says, sighing exasperatedly. "Any one of them can just use the tunnel anyway. Just practice not to run and scream when you happen to face a fucking crowd of zombies."

"I don't think they have the time to practice," Pewdie says with a shake of his head. "Compared to them, we've had months of it. We know how to move in situations like that. We're confident enough that we can do it."

He sees Cry's eyebrows furrow at him in slight suspicion. "What are you trying to say?" he asks warily.

"I'm only saying that it makes _sense_ ," Pewdie tries to clarify, not wanting the other man to get the wrong idea. "It makes sense that we're the best choice for this. That nobody else can do it except us."

"But maybe..." Cry says, licking his lips. "Maybe we can teach them. Or something. You know, how we do it. How to get pass zombies. Maybe... maybe then, they won't need us."

Pewdie fixes Cry a scrutinising look, recognising the falter in the other man's words, at how he is grasping desperately for reasons as to why they shouldn't be part of the group's plan. "Maybe," he replies half-heartedly. But he knows that that is unlikely to happen anyway. Cry would not want to involve himself in the group's affairs any more than he already has now.

As for Pewdie, he had been inclined to agree with Cry initially, that they both should say 'no' to the others once the question is dropped on the following day. However, now that he is looking at the situation in a more rational light, having voiced his findings aloud to Cry at the same time, he can see for himself the inevitability of their position. It is like they had been made to do this. That the months of learning to move through zombie mobs, whether dormant or active, are ultimately preparing them for this moment. Like the first Boss mission in a videogame testing all the skills a player had gained throughout the gameplay. In realising that their role in this mission seems inevitable, Pewdie finds himself accepting it.

"We can still say 'no'," Cry says huffily like this is a last-ditch effort. There is uncertainty in his eyes, in his voice, in his answer. Perhaps he sees the sense in Pewdie's words as well, sees the unavoidability of their involvement. Perhaps he is trying his best to keep refusing it despite the facts. "We don't _have_ to do anything. We're only passing by after all. We don't owe these guys _anything_."

At this, Pewdie sends Cry a sharp look. "That isn't true," he finds himself saying, his voice suddenly fervent with emotion. "Look at what they've given us. Food, security, kindness. A lot more than we could ever give. You can't just say that we don't owe them anything. In fact, we owe these people a _lot._ What's the harm in paying back what they'd given us?"

He sees Cry frowning a little and there's a thoughtful look in his eyes as he considers Pewdie's reasoning. His features seem to soften a little. "Pewds," he begins quietly and Pewdie knows instinctively that Cry is going to try talking him out of this. He quickly interrupts.

"All I'm saying," he says, wanting to get his point across first before Cry can lay out his own argument. "Is that I don't want to leave this place knowing that I didn't do anything to help these people out. That I left without paying them back for their kindness, for not wanting to hurt us or kill us. You might not feel that way about it but I certainly do. I just don't want to do something that I feel I'm going to regret afterwards."

Cry is silent for a while, staring at him, looking a little stunned. Then, he rasps out, "We might die."

"We might," Pewdie replies. "But then again, we've been lucky so far."

"What if our luck runs out?"

Pewdie wants to laugh at that. It's something he's had in his mind for months since he and Cry started travelling together. "Then this is it, partner. The Boss Battle."

Cry snorts at that, a funny stifled sound he keeps in his throat, before he casts Pewdie a long, scrutinising look. Pewdie is shocked to see the warm fondness in his eyes, albeit rather exasperated in nature, as if the other man can't quite believe how much Pewdie means to him.

Cry then sighs deeply, rolling his eyes. "You," he says with a shake of his head. "If you put it like that... Geez, sometimes your reasoning just doesn't make sense."

Pewdie frowns. "What do you mean, it 'doesn't make sense'?" he says, protesting. "That should have been pretty clear to you. Anyone with a brain can see that it makes sense."

"Yeah, I know," Cry replies heartily, the tips of his mouth quirking upwards into a smile that Pewdie hasn't seen for days. "I wouldn't have expected a more humanly reason from you."

Pewdie can't help but blush at that, even though he is certain of his reasons and shouldn't be embarrassed of them. He quickly looks away from Cry, pouting at the darkness. "So I guess that means we're both on board with this?" he mumbles.

"I guess we are," Cry says, conceding to the decision. A brief pause later, he slaps a palm onto his knee with an air of changing the topic, and says, "Come on. We should get some sleep. Big day tomorrow and all."

"Yeah," Pewdie agrees and takes back the flashlight from Cry when the other man hands it to him. He watches and waits until Cry climbs up to his bunk and tucks himself back into his sheets before he makes his way over to his own bed.

As he shuts off his flashlight and settles down, Pewdie can't believe that their talk had actually happened at all. He can't remember the last time their interactions had ended on a good note. It had been a difficult few days for them both since they first started falling out following the events of the robbery. There had been nothing but tension and indifference between them. But now that they have found themselves here, about to undergo something quite dangerous together, he wonders what the future might hold for them. Whether things might continue to get better between them.

As he muses upon what is to come tomorrow night, he feels a mixture of emotions towards this next op, feels the trill of excitement and the tremor of trepidation coursing through his body at the thought of what they are about to do. He understands that he can't predict what might be in store for them. How challenging will the road they had willingly taken be? Are they capable enough to go through with this? Will they die in the attempt for something Pewdie still believed to have value to him? Payback for all the kindness shown towards them?

We can do this, he reassures himself after letting out a shuddering breath to calm down his nerves. We know the rules. We know how to do this. We can make it through the dark as long as we're together.

"Night," Pewdie murmurs automatically out loud to the underside of Cry's bunk like he does every night just before he closes his eyes.

And for the first time ever, Cry replies back to him, "Goodnight, Pewds."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Nope, it wasn't four days, Cry. It was four months.]
> 
> LONG NOTES #1
> 
> A few things I want to highlight - the first regarding Tesla and her character. To those of you who'd thought there was something weird about this young girl, you're absolutely right. Pewds also had a hunch that there was something off about her since the beginning. In a way, Tesla seems similar to the Anorak in terms of how cryptic they both are in their speeches and how we can't seem to figure out what they're both up to. 
> 
> Notice the very different encounters between Tesla/Cry and Tesla/Pewds and how both boys react/perceive her differently. Cry sees her almost like a psychic/soothsayer because she seems to know "what the outcome will be in the end". In contrast, despite the fact that they had very little dialogue together, Pewds sees her in the most obvious sense - as someone who'd lost her mind and gained dual personalities. 
> 
> Which brings us to Pewds's little realisation about himself - whether he might have lost his mind like Tesla had or may be on the verge of doing so. I wrote this in because Pewdie sort of needed to wake up and see what he'd been doing. Talking to maps and flashlights isn't exactly a healthy sign after all.
> 
> Next, it's the boys being stupidly indifferent towards each other, trying and pretending not to care. However, both have their own doubts and fears - the idea of being left behind. Cry fears the idea that Pewdie is slowly being swallowed up by Doc's group and becoming lost to him while Pewds fears the idea that Cry is unhappy enough that he will leave without telling him.
> 
> Finally, notice that the dialogue between Pewds/Cry in the last section of the chapter had been written in stages to show the progression of their talk. Beginning with awkward reassurances, it then goes on to an unwanted argument full of accusations brought about by Pewds saying the wrong thing (something similar like this happened before in CH-11, when Cry assumed Pewds's words sounded accusatory as well). However, once Pewdie gains control of the conversation, they stop arguing and start lining up facts together, trying to figure out what is going on, before they then have a debate and ultimately, make a decision. 
> 
> In addition, you have Pewdie's reasons for agreeing to the op. I tend to portray Pewds as someone who likes to look at things in a rational light as well as makes decisions with some thought on human courtesy (bringing in mind his reasons for cleaning the kitchen way back in CH-7). His way of thinking is a little different to Cry's, since the latter is more no-nonsense and picks choices that lean more on prolonged survival because he knows and understands the harshness of this reality, having gone through a tougher time than Pewds in those first 3 weeks. (Still, it's funny how he was initially opposed to the idea of stealing in contrast to Pewds's stance on it. But then again, he might feel that way because of his experience of being robbed.)
> 
> LONG NOTES #2
> 
> Regarding my long absence, there had been a number of reasons for the 4 month hiatus. Some include the fact that I'd been busy with RL, I'd been lazy, I had writer's block, I'd been writing pretty slow these days, I had no mood for the PDC fandom, I'd been ill, I'd been pretty depressed, stressed out and unhappy, I'd been in a bad car crash, I'd already written this chapter up ages ago and then disliked it so I went to write it again from scratch some months later, I'd been busy reading other people's fanfics and became envious of their writing skills... and so on and so forth.
> 
> I'm very happy to finally be able to post this long awaited chapter up for you all and I want to try and reassure you - especially to those who have asked and even tried to find out where I'd been all these months - that I haven't dropped this story yet and that I will continue to write it. 
> 
> However, I cannot promise faster updates from now on though. University has just begun on our side of the world so I will be busy with that. However, I will try to find time to work on a new chapter and aim to release them every month. No guarantees that the updates will come as scheduled but like I said, I will try my best. 
> 
> Finally, a Thank You to everyone who has read and enjoyed this, to those who have expressed their love for this fic, who had left comments and kudos for every chapter, who had drawn fanart and recommended the story to others, who had come and checked everyday for updates and become disappointed again and again by the continued inactivity. I am so sorry to keep you all waiting for so long. I hope this 15K+ chapter can make up for those missing months for now. And here's a little spoiler for you - I am pretty excited for the next chapter and can't wait for you all to read it once it is completed.
> 
> As always, comments/reviews/kudos etc. are appreciated. Do leave one if you enjoyed this.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This writing project has nearly, if not, already reached A Year Old now! Wow.
> 
> Also, here's a sincere shout-out to the lovely Azeran, who has stuck by this story since the very beginning. Thank you for your support, dear!

**17.**

They'd been travelling for nearly an hour now – a party of seven people moving in a carefully organised fashion. Delta is scouting ahead, leading everyone else from above. On the ground, the remaining six advance together as a unit. Barbetta and Tesla make up the front of the group, Cry and Pewdie huddle in the middle, and Vegas and the Anorak guard the rear.

It was late afternoon. The day of the op.

The other two members of the Fire House, Doc and Speed, had chosen not to come with them because someone had to look after the safe house while the rest were gone. Speed also added rather sheepishly that he never took part in any ops or supply runs, hadn't set foot outside the fire station in a long, long time. "I'd rather stay here where it's safe," he'd explained as he handed a bewildered Cry and Pewdie a pair of new backpacks for them to carry before they set off. "Besides, someone needs to stay here and patch you all up when you get back. Especially you two. Damn, we're really grateful to have you dudes on board with us."

"Well, it's the least we can do," Pewdie had replied reassuringly, gratefully accepting the bag and hoisting it onto his shoulder. Beside them, Cry had been tempted to say something to Speed, to everyone else about the fact that he and Pewdie were initially against this plan but were then roped in on it because of Tesla. He'd decided against it in the end though. It wouldn't be nice to suddenly get cold feet when he and Pewdie had already given their consent the moment Doc and the others asked them for their help.

So, it came down to the seven of them for this mission – Cry, Pewdie, Vegas, Delta, Barbetta, the Anorak and, unexpectedly, Tesla. Cry wasn't sure why the young girl wanted to come with but thought better than to ask when he'd spotted her a little away from the group just before they set off. She had been spinning what looked like a makeshift spear in her hands. It was a strange metallic thing, with one end sharpened into a pointed head and the other shaped into a lump heavy enough to bludgeon things with it. She'd sensed him watching and he winced when she turned to look at him with impassive eyes.

The moment they had left behind the safety of the Fire House, for Cry, it felt a little like stepping back into a scene in a videogame. Empty, litter-strewn streets and abandoned buildings with heavily-boarded up doors and windows greeted them. The many vehicles they'd passed were stripped of their parts and left to rust, the pavements and alleyways were found strewn with dozens of decomposing bodies – both dead and undead – and the unearthly silence they marched through was broken occasionally by a faint whisper of a breeze. The sky above them looked ominous, almost obscured by the mass of storm clouds that had gathered in the space.

Cry had found that moving together in a much larger group was a different experience for him. Usually, he and Pewdie stuck to skulking along the streets, keeping low and making use of any kind of cover as much they can. Here, the group were walking out in the open at a steady pace, careful to maintain the silence around them, only stopping to wait for Delta's signals from the rooftops. Cry was unused to feeling so exposed like this, even when he and Pewdie were sandwiched in between the others in a semblance of a protective circle. Although he felt that he could count on Delta to lead them through the clearest path that was void of danger, he couldn't help but be wary of his surroundings. For every object they passed and every shadow he spotted in the distance, Cry had eyed it warily, half-expecting a pack of zombies to ambush them at any moment.

Eventually, they reach the back of a redbrick building; the top half of the structure scorched black by a previous fire. Cry is surprised when Delta drops down from nowhere to join them on the ground. He immediately sees why. Before them, a tall wire fence more than ten feet high and stretching on for miles stands in their way, separating the buildings and narrow paved streets from the wild grass and the many clumps of trees that lay on the other side. Seeing this, Cry starts, realising that they had already reached the edge of town. Instantly, he looks around, squinting, trying to see beyond the fence for a glimpse of the radio tower. He feels Pewdie's elbow nudge his arm gently in an attempt to get his attention and follows the other man's line of vision.

And he spots it. A red and white latticed needle of steel reaching up and almost touching the mass of dark clouds hanging low in the sky. Although it is still some distance away, set atop sloping green grassland, it is considerably much closer to their reach than the last time Cry had laid eyes on it. He wonders for a moment whether their group might be heading there.

"Yoo-hoo," Vegas sing-songs from behind him, pulling him out of his reverie. He feels her hand lightly smack him in the back. "What are you staring at anyway? Come on, you're blocking up the line. The others have gone upstairs already."

"What?" Cry blinks and realises that Delta, Barbetta and Tesla had entered a back door of the burned building and were carefully manoeuvring up a staircase to get to the upper floors. He quickly follows suit and finds its interior dark, the only light coming from the grey skies that peek in through the large gaps in the walls. Pewdie scampers in after him, muttering something about how dangerous the place is, before letting out an uncontrollable sneeze when the strong smell of smouldering wood and charred brick hit his nostrils.

Once all seven of them reach what is supposed to be the third floor of the edifice, they gather at a far window where, astonishingly, a telescopic ladder had been set outside it. Cry peers over the edge to see that it leads down to the back of a fire engine parked on the other side of the tall wire fence.

"Whoa," he hears Pewdie say as they both watch Delta easily descend the ladder, despite the sheer drop below them.

"The key is to not think about it and climb down at a steady pace," Barbetta tells them quietly. She carries with her her weapon of choice – a sledgehammer, something Cry had not expected her to wield but nonetheless, suited her attractive, athletic image very much. The handle of the tool is almost a whole metre long, painted in a bright yellow colour, and its thick, metal head glints dully in the dwindling light. With one impressive swing, Barbetta hurls the sledgehammer out the window where it sails over the wire fence and lands with a loud, albeit muffled _thump_ on the grass, right next to Tesla's spear. Just when it is that the young girl had thrown it there, Cry doesn't know.

He descends with little problem apart from getting hit by a dizzy spell of vertigo when he is halfway down and he's never felt so grateful to have solid ground underneath his feet once he climbs off the fire engine. Pewdie stumbles after him, unsteady on his feet before falling onto the grass, and a grinning Delta helps him up.

"Geez, how did you even know this thing was _here_?" Pewdie huffs, motioning vaguely at the fire engine. Cry takes a moment to study the vehicle in question, noticing that it is still whole and intact, not stripped of its parts like the others he'd seen. He wonders whether this might be the Fire House's other fire engine. After all, there had only been one in the garage bay back at that safe house.

Delta doesn't get a chance to answer Pewdie's question because the Anorak suddenly drops down, landing onto the grass next to them. "Delta is our explorer," he cuts in casually. "He knows a lot of the areas in town. He visits them sometimes. Some a little bit... more than others."

He pauses after that, turning his head slightly, and Cry frowns in response at this information, unsure of the Anorak's tone, unsure of why the other man is gazing at the fire engine as if it is supposed to mean something. Cry's mind begins to race, trying to piece things together despite his internal protests. Could the Anorak... be implying something? Could he be implying that Delta happened to visit _this_ particular area a lot? Why would he say that? What could that even mean? What was so special about this place anyway? Or perhaps, this fire engine? All it seems to do is provide an easy way to get beyond this wire fence.

Cry glances at Delta, hoping to find some sort of answer by seeing the other man's reaction to the Anorak's words. He manages to catch a brief flicker of some sort of emotion on Delta's face, a nervous twitch in his eye, but it quickly disappears when the other man lets out a resigned sigh. His lips stretch sideways into a sheepish grin.

"Right, right, you caught me," he says, scratching his coarse, black hair. "So this town happens to be my playground. Can't help it if I keep coming back to the same joint. Some places just have that appeal, right?"

"And this is really no time for chitchat," Vegas grumbles as she carefully climbs off the fire engine to join their circle. "Y'all see that up there?" she asks, motioning towards the cloudy skies. "We don't want that busting open before we reach that tunnel. Now, let's get a move on."

Cry is a little disappointed to find out that they are not heading towards the radio tower as he'd first hoped. In the next half hour, they proceed through their new environment, through grasslands and trees instead of paved streets. The air around them had become still and heavy and Cry can almost taste the warm and thick smell of heavy cloud mass. A gust of wind suddenly picks up, bringing with it the smell of approaching rain and rustling the wild grass they're marching through, the low branches of the trees they pass. Above them, peeking through the shaking leaves, the dark grey clouds continue to roll by before the first quiet rumble of thunder sounds off in the distance. No one speaks. Not even the normally talkative Delta and Vegas. Everyone is quiet as they continue marching forwards, not once breaking their formation.

Finally, Delta falters into a stop in the middle of a thicket of trees. At his feet, a square slab of concrete nestles in the grass, the greenery almost concealing an old manhole cover, its cast iron metal rusted red over time.

"This must be it then," Barbetta says, crouching down to examine the manhole cover. Her slim fingers tap at the pick holes of the metal. The Anorak stands over her, extracting a thin metallic stick with a hook on one side and a handle on the other from his backpack. He wedges the hook into one of the pick holes and, with some difficulty, slowly lifts the cover, grunting a little at the exertion. Barbetta gives him some help, sliding the circular lid across the concrete slab until the entire manhole is uncovered.

When Cry stares at the hole in the ground, he is suddenly aware of its existence, of how the set of steps installed in the inner side of the wall seems to sink and disappear into the gloom below. He realises with a jolting start that he and Pewdie are about to go _down_ this shaft, down into the earth and into confined darkness, away from the sky and the open air and the light. His heart begins to hammer in his chest at the thought, his apprehension finally catching up to him. When he glances at Pewdie, he finds the other man staring at the hole too, his face drained of colour.

"Oh," Pewdie begins to say to the others but then falls silent, as if he cannot find the words to describe how he feels. Cry wants to say something to him, perhaps a small reassuring remark or a light-hearted joke but his voice is gone; his throat had suddenly become dry.

"Alright. First things first," Vegas says, all business-like as she unzips her large backpack and begins to rummage inside it. If she had noticed Cry and Pewdie's reactions to the manhole, she doesn't show it. "Do you boys remember the plan?"

Cry pulls his gaze away from the opening in the concrete. "Uh," he rasps, trying to recall what the group had discussed back in the Fire House. The mental image of a pitch-black tunnel full of monsters makes it difficult for him to concentrate. Nevertheless, he tries.

"Go through the tunnel, get through the locked door and out of the first exit you see," he lists off what he remembers, trying not to let his voice shake. "That'll lead us right inside the camp. Keep out of sight at all times. Once we find a good place for the firecrackers, we need to wait until _after_ the storm breaks before we can set them off. Then, we get the hell out of dodge."

"That about sums it up," Barbetta comments with a satisfied nod. "We'll be waiting outside the camp. Once you create that distraction, just leave the rest to us. Head back to town afterwards. See if you can use that radio tower as a compass to find your way back to the fence. We'll meet you there."

"Oh... okay–" Cry murmurs, feeling lightheaded as his mind slowly tries to absorb all that information. Then, a small tug of anxiety causes him to say, "W-wait, so what if... i-is this safe? I mean, what if we–"

"You won't get lost. Here, I've drawn you a rough map of the tunnel," the Anorak interrupts him, suddenly appearing by his elbow with a piece of paper in his hand. Cry automatically takes it from him without meeting his eyes, barely glancing at the drawing scribbled on it. He doubts that he can look at it and try to make some sense of it right now. Everything around him seems to be going too fast for him to process. He feels disorientated, a little lost. His mind had become slow and stupid, desperately trying to grasp the reality of the situation right now.

"You'll also need these," Vegas had pulled out a couple of things from her bag, coming over to dump some of them to Cry and the rest to Pewdie. Caught off-guard, Cry fumbles with the items in his hands, trying not to drop them. In the half-light, he is able to distinguish a few packets of glow sticks and a half-face air-purifying respirator, the kind urban explorers often use to enable them to breathe in the dangerous places they venture into. He stares at the mask in disbelief. This feels unreal. Are they really going to wear these? Are they really going _down_ there?

"Eheh, ah, thanks," he hears Pewdie's nervous muttering beside him. "But we have flashlights. So we don't really need these glow sticks."

"Oho, trust me," Vegas's dark eyes are unwavering, serious. "You _will_ need them."

"O-Okay," Pewdie's voice rises into a squeak. "So, um. Anything else we need to know?"

"Yeah, some missiles to launch, remember?" This time, it is Delta's turn to pass on some things. The other man is grinning as he hands Pewdie a lighter and a roll of firecrackers wrapped in clear plastic. There seems to be as many as fifty bright red tubes strung together and rolled up to resemble something like a wheel. Pewdie carefully takes them, as if afraid that the closeness of the lighter and the firecrackers might entice it to start exploding in his face, and begins to stuff the items into his bag. Once he finishes, he zips up and adjusts his crowbar, which he'd tied to his backpack earlier on.

"So, missiles but no guns?" Pewdie jokes, giving Delta a rather wobbly grin. It looks a little forced, as if he is trying to put on a brave front.

"Oh? Ever used a gun before?" Vegas asks in return, eyeing them both with a critical gleam in her eye.

"Just a revolver," Cry answers a little too eagerly, because the thought of having a gun with him might help alleviate some of the anxiety he's feeling for their operation. He suddenly feels Pewdie's wide-eyed, questioning stare on him and fights off the urge to wince, realising that he'd never told the other man that piece of information before. "Only fired it three times though," he adds sheepishly.

"Not good enough," Vegas says dismissingly, shaking her head and making Cry deflate in disappointment. "Unless you boys know how to fire one properly and accurately, you don't get no guns. Don't want to waste ammo on missed shots. Just stick to whatever weapons you got. _And_ ," she pauses, her voice suddenly going sharp. "If you happen to get caught in any kind of gunfight, for fuck's sake, keep your head down at all times. Unless you want to lose it. _Capiche_?"

What? Cry thinks in alarm, his eyes widening at the words. _What_ gunfight? Is there going to be a–

A sudden clap of thunder, loud and sharp, shatters the peace of the trees, forcefully halting his train of thought. Cry flinches at the sound, so does Pewdie, and notices that everyone else seems to have bristled a little from the noise as well. There is a pause as a quiver of apprehension ripples in the air around them and Cry sees for the first time just how many uneasy faces have formed after that unexpected burst of sound. Even Barbetta appears a little bit uncomfortable, glancing up at the sky while anxiously drumming her fingers on the handle of her sledgehammer. It seems the oppressive air of the impending thunderstorm is making them all nervous.

Eventually, Cry clears his throat, unable to stand this tense atmosphere. "Well," he says, his voice coming out croaky. The group turn to look at him but nobody moves.

He decides to act first, almost in a mechanical, unthinking fashion, by giving the inner pocket of his jacket a pat to check that the lock pick pouch which Tesla had given him the previous evening is still there. Then, making his way to the concrete slab, he unwraps a glow stick in his hands, cracking it and shaking it to life in a glow of bright green luminescence. Fitting the respirator over his mouth and nose comes next. When he takes a moment to adjust the straps near the back of his cap, he is briefly surprised by how startlingly loud his breathing sounds in his ears. A few seconds later, he senses Pewdie sidling next to him. The bottom half of the other man's face has also been covered and from the top of his respirator, Pewdie's eyebrows are knitted together, an indication of his anxiety for what they are about to do. Together, they both stare at the hole in the ground again, and Cry imagines a giant mouth waiting to engulf them whole.

Oh fuck, he thinks, aware that his heart is hammering against his chest once more. I can't believe we're actually going to do this.

He is startled slightly when he feels an arm curl around his tense shoulder and realises that Delta had stepped up behind them. The man's other arm is wrapped around a surprised Pewdie's shoulder too. "See you on the other side?" he is saying with a smile, his voice barely concealing the mixed emotions of excitement and nervousness. He then draws Cry and Pewdie closer to him until they are almost cheek-to-cheek – not caring that they are both wearing respirators – before squeezing their shoulders briefly, reassuringly, and lets go, stepping back from them. Cry can feel his face burning from inside his respirator. Delta's gesture towards them, the way he had pulled them close to him in an almost-hug, had been strangely affectionate.

"Don't you go 'n get yourselves killed down there," Vegas offers her own parting remark, a careless threat as usual, and Cry recognises the steel in her voice and gaze. "Or I'll hunt you boys down and whip your asses 'till next Sunday. You mark my words."

The Anorak says, "If you do happen to get lost and can't use the map, use your instincts." After a while, he then adds like an afterthought, "The tunnel also echoes. Try not to talk aloud or talk to anything. Not even to each other. Not even to the objects you have around you."

Objects? Does he mean...? Cry thinks in bewilderment, just as he always does whenever the Anorak speaks. Beside him, Pewdie had stiffened, jerking his head up sharply at the words. He looks like he wants to say something but then, chooses not to share it in the end. In the brief but tense pause that followed afterwards, Cry shuffles on the spot, feeling awfully uncomfortable. Did the Anorak say that intentionally? Like he knew that Pewdie sometimes talked to things? But how could he even know that...?

Barbetta's words for them are uttered in her usual cool and indifferent manner. "Godspeed," she simply says and coming from her, it is enough; concise and sufficient for the occasion. Cry nods in reply, surprised by her effort.

And almost jumps when he feels a small hand grasp his own. Turning to his side, he is surprised to find Tesla lingering there. She leans in to speak and he has no choice but to bend down to catch her words.

"Set off the firecrackers from someplace low. Someplace with plenty of obstructions. But go past a bridge first. Don't drop anything you have with you. Do you understand?" she murmurs in her typical no-nonsense manner. Cry is relieved that she sounds more like herself and not like her other voice. Before he can ask her to clarify things further though, she lets go of him and retreats, leaving him staring at the empty place she had stood not seconds ago.

"This is it," Delta says, giving him and Pewdie one last pat. "Down the hatch you go."

It's time. Cry gathers up every last drop of his courage and steps up to the lip of the manhole, right by the steps which lead down into the pit. He then takes in one last breath, one last look at the faces around him, at the trees hovering above them, at the glimpse of swirling thunder clouds, the darkling sky beyond, and begins his descent.

It isn't bad at first. The steps are fairly easy to use and he is able to fit his hands and feet snugly into every rung. He keeps his gaze upwards, watching Pewdie's own descending progress a couple of steps above him, and realises that the manhole opening – their only window to the outside world – is growing smaller and smaller the lower he descends. He tries not to think about what lay waiting for them at the bottom of the shaft. The glow stick in his hand provides some comfort at least, illuminating a portion of the growing darkness with a green glow, casting light over the faded concrete walls.

Two long minutes later, Cry's limbs start to get tired. His back aches from the combined weight of his backpack and his shovel pulling him down.

By then, the manhole opening is nothing but a circle of light above them. Cry can feel himself being slowly swallowed up by the darkness. He doesn't speak, and neither does Pewdie; they only concentrate on breathing and moving downwards. Despite his resolution not to think about it, his mind begins to taunt him with images of them slipping and plummeting down an endless abyss but never reaching the bottom. God, he thinks as agitation quickly creeps into his chest. Just how fucking deep does this ladder _go_?

Abruptly, his foot meets solid ground and it takes a second for him to register what it means. They had made it to the bottom. He lets out a long sigh of relief once he peels his fingers off the cold rungs.

Immediately, Cry notices a different kind of energy in the air, a different kind of tension unlike the oppressive one full of static charge which he'd felt from the world above. Here, the tension is one of echoing silence, a heavy stillness like a stagnant tomb's. In the darkness pressing in around them, Cry's glow stick seems to have become startlingly brighter in his hand. He's disappointed to find that it doesn't illuminate as far as he first thought it would because he can only see about a couple of inches in front of him, this small halo of green light pushing back the walls of blackness. He holds up the glow stick and waves it about, trying to find the floor, the walls, the ceiling.

There is a sound of something being unwrapped, then a sharp echoing _crack_ and Pewdie's glow stick is shaken to life, his radiating a bright red glow. Cry can see the outline of the other man's face, the bulky shape of his respirator masking his nose and mouth, and his eyes. They are wide, wavering, and a little bit terrified.

"This is scarier than any videogame I've ever played," Pewdie admits despite the Anorak's warning not to speak. But his voice is mostly muffled by his mask and doesn't resonate off the unseen walls. Cry doesn't trust himself to answer. He feels awfully small in this darkness. He nods in agreement instead, aware that his breathing is resounding loudly in his ears.

A quick investigation of the area reveals that they are, in fact, standing in a tunnel. It is surprisingly wide, the curved walls and ceiling merging into an arch and made up of aligned bricks that are coated with layers of sludge and slime. Old, rusty pipes hang above them, twisting and turning in a confusing jumble of metal. Underneath their feet, the brick-lined floor slopes downwards into a groove in the middle, where a small channel of water silently burbles along it.

Cry decides that this is the right time to consult the map that the Anorak had given him. He holds his glow stick up to the piece of paper he'd extracted from his pocket and squints at the hand-drawn lines. The tunnel they're on seems to go straight ahead but will end in a T-junction. After that, the only way forward will be to either go left or right. He and Pewdie need to make a left turn, keep on that path and eventually find the locked door that they need to get through. It seems simple and straightforward enough but Cry doubts that it will really be that way. He only hopes that they don't get lost. They'll lose valuable time trying to find their way back if that becomes the case.

"Shall we?" Pewdie mutters once Cry stows the map away, waving his red glow stick vaguely at the darkness before them. Cry nods a little, taking a few unsteady steps forward and his boots scuffle against the brick-lined floor, the sound they make echoing along the passageway. Taking note of this, he moves again, this time with careful, calculated steps to minimise the noise and Pewdie seems to take the hint, mimicking his actions. They proceed onwards in a cautious, tentative tread, gazing warily at their surroundings, as if expecting the blackness around them to jump out and bite them. Cry notices that Pewdie's hand is hovering close to his sleeve, as if the other man is itching to grab it but is holding himself back from doing so.

They continue forging ahead, these two souls illuminated by green and red, prowling along a damp, underground passageway enclosed in darkness, only able to watch where they're stepping but seeing little else in front of them. Cry begins to notice that the tiny stream trickling through the groove they're walking along seems to be growing bigger in size the more they creep forwards. Soon enough, he becomes certain that the water now pooling around the heels of his boots hadn't been there a couple of paces before. It is getting harder and harder to move forward without making too much noise, with them trying not to splash through the swelling channel.

And then, there are the noises. The echoing _drip, drip, drip_ coming from a leaky pipe or two, the quiet sloshing of the water at their feet, and then voices, quiet moaning voices, resonating from somewhere ahead. Cry swallows, hearing his breathing grow shaky and ragged in his ears, and braces himself. He can feel Pewdie's fingers curling into the folds of his sleeve, grasping it lightly in his hand.

The smell reaches them first before they are able to see them. Even when the filters in their respirators had blocked out most of the odour, Cry can still smell the reek of something repugnant and repulsive in the tunnel. The awful stench of body decomposition mixed with the natural waste of the sewers is strong enough to reach their noses. Cry squints, slowing down his walking pace, and holds the glow stick out. Where _are_ they though? He wonders uneasily. Where are the zombies? Unconsciously, he gives the stick in his hand an indignant shake but it still doesn't help. He pushes forward, cautiously, carefully; his eyes trained ahead, his watchful gaze expectant, ready.

And Pewdie's hand, gripping his sleeve, suddenly tugs him into an abrupt stop. Cry turns to look at him and sees that his eyes are wide with alarm; notices that he has stiffened beside him. Pewdie's red glow stick is illuminating a broad masculine back, a shirt that is mottled with suspicious dark stains. They can see an outline of a crooked neck and a horrid bite mark marring its skin.

Holy fuck, Cry thinks, wanting to back away. There is someone _here,_ and the creature is actually standing just a few inches away from them. He can't believe that they are unable to see it until they're this close to it. The glow sticks they have are not making their jobs easier. How on earth are they going to move through a whole bunch of zombies if they can't even see where they are from a distance? Pewdie seems to be thinking along the same lines too. Because he carefully stashes his glow stick into his pocket, the bright red light continuing to glow through the fabric, and pulls out his flashlight. He clicks it on.

And Cry wishes he hadn't. Because the beam of Pewdie's flashlight lands not on one zombie but a staggering, fucking _mass_ of them, so many undead creatures filling up the length of the tunnel from here onwards, cramped together like some bizarre, disorganised queue of people lined up for something upfront. He can see the milky blankness of their eyes, the bloodstains, the rotting skin, their swaying bodies, their lolling mouths. God, there are so, so _many_ of them _._

He understands now, understands just why Vegas had told them they would need glow sticks much more than flashlights. He understands why it is unlikely that anybody in their right mind would take one look at this sight and still have the courage to wade through this zombie flood and make it to the other side in one piece. He understands why this task seems suited for Pewdie and himself because they are the only ones who have any kind of chance of doing this.

Unlike Cry, Pewdie startles at the sight before them and Cry senses him flinching sharply in response to it. He immediately reaches out and grabs hold of the other man's shoulder, fearful for a second that they might draw attention, but thankfully, Pewdie doesn't jump out of the water or scream like he used to do. Instead, he remains absolutely still for a few seconds, just staring ahead, looking stunned by the view. Then, he wordlessly turns off his flashlight, puts it away and replaces it with his glow stick.

His eyes then meet Cry's. Cry thinks he's reading, _holy fuck, this is crazy. This is fucking crazy, bro. Oh my god. Can we... can we really do this?_ And Cry can feel Pewdie's growing panic, his uncertainty, the overwhelming instinct to bolt away from danger. He doesn't blame the other man for suddenly feeling this way. For one thing, they both know that it is unwise to fight these creatures because the resulting ruckus will wake up all the others. They will then be swallowed up by this flood so quickly that there will be no time to escape. At the same time, if anything goes wrong from here onwards, they have nowhere to go. What lies before them are a horde of zombies on one side and only darkness on the other – a black void that might lead nowhere, an endless passageway that goes on and on or even straight into a dead end.

It is so easy to become afraid, to have your courage sapped out of you in the blink of an eye. But he and Pewdie have come so far that there is no point in going back now. Cry decides to act quickly instead, very aware that he needs to do something before he becomes discouraged himself. Adjusting his hold on Pewdie so that he is clutching the other man's forearm instead of his shoulder, Cry gives it a reassuring squeeze. They can do this, he thinks. They have done this. Pewdie had said so himself. Cry had said so himself. The circumstances might be glaringly different but it all comes down to sheer patience, to their ability to stay silent, to their will not to give in to their fear.

He tells Pewdie all of this, silently and without the need for words, and makes sure that his eyes never leave the other man's as he gives him a firm, resolute nod. He is relieved when Pewdie understands, when the other man's gaze hardens into grim determination, when he wraps his own hand around Cry's forearm in a strong grip and they hold onto each other like they always do, like they always have.

(It's odd to think that a few days ago, they weren't even talking to each other.)

Cry turns back, peering at the not-so empty blackness before them. Now what? He ponders, his mind becoming focused. Neither of them make a move yet. They have to think first. Assess the situation. What are we dealing with here?

For one thing, the brief glance from Pewdie's flashlight onto the rest of the tunnel has shown them that the zombies are standing quite close together and that there is little space to squeeze through. Secondly, the creatures seemed to be the sleeping kind, dormant and unmoving, like a collection of ancient statues left in a forgotten crypt. Cry isn't sure whether he wants to touch these things when they're like this. His and Pewdie's past experiences involved moving through dormant zombies at a distance – thus, avoiding having to touch them – as well as moving slowly through the active ones at close range.

Right now, they are facing something different, something new to them again. What will happen if Cry nudges one of these sleeping creatures? Can it be shifted aside without problem? Or will it wake up and attack him?

Before he can decide on what to do, Pewdie suddenly moves and – to Cry's alarm, the other man reaches out and pokes his red glow stick onto their first zombie's broad back. Cry very nearly hits him for this careless action.

Astonishingly, the zombie doesn't stir. Pewdie applies the stick onto the creature's back again, pressing a little harder now, and Cry can tell that the other man is trying to test the waters, trying to see how far his actions can go. Just as Pewdie pushes against the zombie with enough force to throw it off-balance, he suddenly jerks back sharply, almost crashing into Cry, when the creature's head wobbles and lifts itself in attention. Cry and Pewdie freeze against each other, the breath halting to a stop inside the former's respirator.

But _nothing_ happens. The zombie rights itself, letting out a weak, ghastly moan, its body swaying a little on the spot. Its head lolls around its crooked neck, making horrible clicking sounds whenever it moves, but other than that, it stays put and makes no attempt to investigate who had stirred it from its sleep.

Okay, okay, Cry thinks keenly as resolution settles in his mind. He feels a lot more certain now about the best way to handle this situation. When he shoots a quick look at Pewdie, he is amazed to find the message in the other man's gaze to be the same as his – _Stay close to me._

They tread forward, crouching, taking care not to splash the water swirling around their boots. Once they pass their first zombie, Cry is immediately confronted by another – what used to be a woman with wavy fair hair that now lay in wispy clumps on its head. He gently nudges it aside and sidles past it, stopping briefly to wait for Pewdie to slip through a gap between two other zombie bodies. After that, they quickly establish a rhythm as they keep at it, twisting and ducking and squeezing past protruding limbs and obstructing torsos, all while wading through the waters at their feet. To Cry, the whole experience feels a lot like trying to move through a weird swamp because there was a chance that the trees they were walking past might come alive and attack them.

Time passes so slowly in the darkness. Cry doesn't know how long they've been moving, how long they've been down here, how long since he'd last seen the world above. The only thing he can make out as they forge ahead are bodies and bodies of undead creatures, some moaning, some twitching, some standing perfectly still like statues. The sight itself is eerie and unsettling, these rotting ghouls lit up into view by the glows of red and green. He hopes that his glow stick will eventually illuminate the shape of the locked door that they're seeking soon. Very soon.

Once he shoulders his way past a little old man, its single milky eye left on a face that had been chewed to hell, he suddenly comes face-to-face with a solid brick-lined wall. He stares at it in disbelief, unable to understand why it is there.

Oh _no_ , he thinks, and his heartbeat quickens in fear. No, no, no, nonononono _no_ –

He panics, unable to help himself. Thoughts of _dead-ends_ and _nowhere to go now_ invade his mind, filling him with a sense of disorientation, of being lost and helpless in the dark, driven into a corner and surrounded by a throng of zombies waiting to be shaken into life. He barely registers Pewdie pulling his arm or notice that the other man's wide, knowing eyes are trying to tell him something. He is too busy wrestling with his own mind, trying to will it to calm down. Another tug from Pewdie causes Cry to stare back at him blankly. He sees Pewdie's shoulders sag a little, as if he is sighing, and almost jumps when the other man reaches forward and digs into Cry's pants pocket to pull out a piece of paper.

 _Oh_! Cry thinks, remembering the Anorak's map and becoming embarrassed for zoning out like that and letting his panic control him. He and Pewdie have not walked into a dead-end after all because this must be the T-junction they should be expecting. Cry had been so absorbed in the task of crossing this swamp of undead creatures that he'd forgotten about this part of their route. Once he feels himself calm down, he studies the piece of paper together with Pewdie in the light of their glow sticks again.

 _Left_ , Pewdie's finger indicates on the map, and they exchange small nods before setting off again. They keep close to the side of the tunnel and Cry lets his hand brush lightly and occasionally against the slimy wall, finding some strange comfort at the knowledge that something strong and solid is there, leading them down the dark pathway.

They get back into the rhythm of sidling past zombie bodies very quickly and Cry becomes so engrossed in concentrating intensely on this task again that he almost misses the sound the first time. He only notices that something is wrong when Pewdie's grip on his forearm tightens. Just as he turns to the other man, pulling his fingers back from the tunnel wall in the process, he notices Pewdie peering up at the ceiling, his eyebrows furrowed worriedly.

What is it? Cry almost says aloud but catches himself in time. He gives Pewdie's arm a tug in an attempt to get his attention but is saved from a verbal answer when something rumbles above them, far, far above them. A sound so powerful that it had penetrated the layers of earth and concrete and brick and caused the walls of the tunnel to shake ever so slightly, depositing debris and water droplets onto their heads. Cry tenses in alarm, realising what it is. Thunder. The storm. Has it broken yet?

He is scared out of his wits when the zombie nearest to him suddenly jerks into life. Its skinny limbs start to shake in a series of twitching movements and then it lifts its head, lets it loll around its neck onto the side so that its blank eyes are visible in Cry's line of sight. Cry swears for one moment that the creature can see him even though he knows that it cannot. Still, it doesn't stop him from retreating back to the tunnel wall.

Except that it is not a tunnel wall which he bumps into. It is a body. A body that isn't even Pewdie's because the other man is still standing on his right side, still holding onto him. So what the hell had moved? Where did the wall go? Who is standing behind him right now? Oh no, no, no. He does not want to look. He already _knows_ what it is and he wonders how the hell it got here when he knows it hadn't been a few seconds ago. Is this one fully awake? Had it heard him? Is that why it's closer to him now is that why it's behind him now about to reach out and grab him and sink its teeth into him oh shit oh shit oh shit no don't panic Cry don't–

Cry pulls away from the solid presence at his back and doesn't care about manners or his manliness when he crowds right into Pewdie's personal space, pressing himself against him and clutching the other man's arm in a panic-stricken frenzy. Shit, shit, shit, I can't – he realises in horror that he is unable to stop the panic rippling through his body and plaguing his mind this time. He blames this loss of self-control on the darkness pressing in all around them and the stupid meagre light of their glow sticks and the fact that he can't fucking _see_ anything very far. It feels so much like those spooky fucking woods again. Like peering into that black void again and knowing that it's watching you back and waiting to throw a fucking jump scare at you and this is almost the same except they're underground and there are zombies and water at their feet and anything, just _anything,_ can happen to them and when it does, there's no one else down here to help them out-

Another rumble of thunder, this one quieter but much longer than the last, sends the tunnel shaking again and Cry and Pewdie cowering together like a pair of frightened children. Somewhere in the distance comes the sound of several heavy objects scraping off the ceiling and falling into the water in a series of loud splashes. Before them, illuminated in eerie glows of red and green, zombies are shuddering into life like a collection of frightening wind-up dolls, their movements jerky, their heads twitching on their necks, their jaws snapping, their milky eyes shining in the light. Cry catches a glimpse of Pewdie's horrified stare as the other man hisses words at him through his respirator: "Oh shit, _shit_ , they're waking up, they're waking up, what do we do, what do we do–!"

We have to get out of here, is Cry's only thought. Fuck, we have to get out of here _now._ When he turns to search for an exit, it occurs to him now that he doesn't know where to go, that he'd forgotten their route, that they're actually stuck in the middle of a pitch-black tunnel swarming with zombies. That's when the rest of his courage dissipates from him like morning dew and a surge of terror hits him in its place. _Oh god_ , Cry thinks helplessly, aware that his body is now quaking in fear. He cannot will himself to move, knowing that there is nowhere to go. He can't make himself think; his treacherous mind is blank and offering him nothing. What should he do then? What should he _do_? Just like before, he is stuck between wanting to run away and wanting to not run away and he knows that when he's reached this stage, he is so fucked.

It is Pewdie who eventually coaxes him into action. He gently shoves Cry off of him with one hand but still maintains his firm grip on the latter's forearm. Then, without warning, he sets off in a mad, reckless march, pulling Cry with him and nudging zombies to the side and out of his path. Cry's eyes widen in disbelief and he's suddenly even more afraid than ever. He and Pewdie have abandoned their stealth techniques in favour of a quick escape but they're making so much fucking _noise_. Their feet splash through the water and he is almost tempted to dig his heels into the ground and force them to stop because shit, man, _shit._ Pewdie is fucking _losing_ it.

He winces as the tunnel shakes again after another rumble of thunder, a sound which reminds him of a sleeping gigantic beast slowly stirring from its sleep. From the darkness, Cry senses the heightened activity in the passageway – how the sleepy moans had coarsened into predatory snarling, how more and more bodies are being rustled into life and how undead feet have begun to move and splash through water, likely to be heading after them. Yet, something else is also happening. Incredibly, the crowd of zombies seems to be thinning because the bodies are now spaced out, giving them easier access through. The pathway they're on is also noticeably sloping downwards, making the water swell and swirl around their ankles, and the singing of the little flowing stream had intensified into an echoing call. At the same time, Cry notices that Pewdie's marching pace has quickened almost urgently. The other man seems frantic, as if he is on the verge of hysterics, desperately sidling past the twitching zombies in hopes that he can find them both an exit. He doesn't seem to notice though, that their actions are quickly drawing unwanted attention, that whenever they splash past an unmoving undead body, its head swerves to the side to follow them.

" _Pewds_!" Cry calls out and his voice comes out in a screaming whisper that is instantly swallowed by his respirator. " _Pewds, stop! Please!"_

And then, something grabs him from behind – Cry can feel the weight of its hand on his backpack – and in one fell swoop, his panic peaks, his heart jumps in his chest and the last piece of his composure shatters.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks and grasps Pewdie's wrist tightly, breaking into a run.

Their feet smash through the water, the sharp sounds echoing down the tunnel. Zombies come into view from every direction in the glows of green and red and Cry barrels past them, dodging their outstretched arms and knocking them aside. He cries out when he feels bony fingers pulling at his sleeves, his jacket, his backpack. He hears Pewdie yelp and curse beside him and he yanks the other man forward, not once loosening his hold, forcing himself to push on even though he knows it may be hopeless. At any time now, he expects to be dragged backwards by a countless number of rotting arms, to be swallowed by the mob of zombies and then torn into pieces and devoured in seconds.

He can't believe that this is how it is going to end, that this is where he will die, in an underground sewer tunnel with walls that are growing – what the hell? Is the tunnel growing smaller? Oh fuck it _is,_ it's narrowing, closing in on them, trying to force them into a corner where there is no escape, we're so fucked, oh my god, why the fuck did I run this way it might be a dead end there's no way back there's no way back oh god what have we done they've woken up now they're coming for us there must be hundreds of them no point in looking back we can't see shit oh dear god we're going to die here we are going to di–

All of a sudden, Cry's feet slide from underneath him and he feels Pewdie's wrist being ripped out of his grasp. The next thing he knows, he is thrown backwards onto the sewer floor, the impact of the fall punching the air out of his lungs, making him gasp. Water smacks into his face, all over his glasses and into his eyes. Pain laces across his back and neck from where he had landed on his bag and shovel. Then he's sliding down a slippery, slimy slope far too fast for him to see. He flails, making his body turn as he tries to find some sort of purchase to slow his descent and then his left side suddenly bangs into something solid – a brick wall, his glow stick reveals to him - and the forceful collision makes him yell in pain, makes him curl his body into itself instinctively. Then he's hurtling down a much smaller shaft, bursting out of square hole a moment later. For a second, he hangs in empty air.

And he lands, after dropping down just five feet of air, into a very shallow pool of water. Not long after, something heavy splashes into the water beside him in a muffled pained grunt, causing a wave of liquid coldness to wash over his face. It is Pewdie. Together, he and Cry lie there in paralysed shock, gasping loudly into their respirators as they stare at the hole in the wall, the very same hole they'd just fallen through. Limp with exhaustion, they wait in anticipation for the current of undead bodies to pour in after them.

After a minute, it's clear that nothing is coming. Not from the hole or from either end of this new place they've found themselves in. It takes a while for Cry to calm down his fast-beating heart and decide that they're safe for now. He reaches up and tears his respirator off, not caring about the sewer stench and the possible toxic gases floating around, and gulps down several well-needed breaths of air. He can hear Pewdie do the same thing too. The other man's voice spills out of his mask in a tumble of uncontrollable wheezing and erratic panting.

They don't speak, already far too occupied in trying to catch their own breaths. The silence they're in, broken only by their breathing and the quiet gurgling of water being deposited into their pool, is almost peaceful. For a moment, Cry is stunned by the sudden change in environment - of having the madness of the zombie-filled tunnel replaced by this stagnant stillness once more. The more he thinks about it, the more he finds the reality he is in right now to be far too much for him to handle. He's aware that his hand is visibly shaking from where it is gripping his glow stick in the water. Shutting his eyes, he realises with a start that they are wet with warm, unshed tears. His chest is heavy with emotion.

They should be dead, Cry grimly tells himself. Oh god, they really _should_ be dead. Because what Cry and Pewdie had done back there – panicking and breaking into a run and shoving through a crowd of zombies – was reckless and stupid and dangerous. Those undead creatures should have gotten them by now. But they hadn't, and it was a fucking mystery why they hadn't. Against all odds, he and Pewdie had miraculously escaped death again and with the both of them still in one piece. It was just impossible. Cry cannot find it in him to accept the fact that they are still _alive_ right now.

"Cry?" he hears Pewdie breathe from somewhere above him. When he doesn't answer, he feels Pewdie shaking him, urging him to open his eyes. He does so slowly, carefully making sure no unwanted tears escape the corners of his eyes. Through the water droplets staining his glasses, he sees the halo of Pewdie's glow stick illuminating the latter's face in red. Pewdie's expression is pinched with worry.

"You okay?" the other man murmurs down to him. Cry doesn't move yet. His body is still thrumming in pain, although the sensation had dulled slightly after many minutes of staying in the water. Pewdie tentatively rests a hand onto Cry's shoulder and Cry can feel the warmth and concern in his touch. He decides to sit up then, struggling a little while doing so. His head spins once he is upright and he pulls off his damp cap to clutch at the side of his skull.

"Are you _okay?"_ Pewdie says again, and Cry chooses this time to interrupt, pulling his hand away from his temple as he does so.

" _Fuck_ ," is the first thing he says aloud and he's strangely satisfied to hear his curse resonating off the walls in a chorus. "Fucking, fucking hell, man. What the fuck were we thinking, coming down here in the first fucking place?" And suddenly, his anger – brought to life from the terror of their near-death escape – rises in his chest, up his throat and spills out of his lips in a rant: "I am so fucking _sick_ of zombies and fucking tunnels and walking in the fucking dark. I am so _sick_ of doing dangerous, crazy shit like this. Stupid, stupid shit that can get us all killed. Just what the fuck are we doing? Why are we even doing this? I just want to get the fuck out of this place. _Goddammit_. This is stupid, man. This whole fucking thing is stupid. What we _did_ was stupid, you know that? _Geez_ , I can't- I can't take this-"

"Whoa, bro–" Pewdie's eyes are widening but Cry is too caught up in his rambling, too caught up in the tempest of emotions to care.

"We should've fucking _died_ back there," he says pointedly and realises that his voice had risen into a frighteningly hysterical note and – dammit, his eyes are hot again, they're wet again, no, this is not happening. "I can't fucking believe we made it out. How the fuck are we still even alive? Why are we even fucking _alive_? We should've died. A lot of things went wrong back there. They were waking up. We were making so much noise. We were running right through them without any fucking thing to cover us. No fucking ladder to push through them. No fucking weapons to kill them. No fucking place to hide. Nowhere to go to. We should've died back there. But we _didn't._ How _is_ that? Why? Why are we not _dead_ yet?"

He wants to say more, he wants to say a _whole_ lot more, he wants to _scream_ it all out, but the rest of his shaky words dissolve in a strangled hiccup and he realises that the weight in his chest is crushing him inside, that he is breathing erratically, unevenly. His mind is in tatters. His eyes are burning. A sob escapes him.

Pewdie is staring at him from where he sits, looking stunned and shocked by the sudden emotional outburst. Cry realises this is the first time during this stupid zombie shitfest that something like this has ever happened to him. Usually, he stops himself from losing control because he knows nothing good will come out of it, that all it does is try to beat you down, to snuff out any hope you have left. He'd told himself from the beginning that he wouldn't let himself get to that stage. And yet, it seems like he might be on the way there. He can feel it - the effects of those crushing feelings in his chest, making his eyes burn and threaten to spill hopeless tears; feels the spot of fatigue burying into a space in his head like a thorn, promising dark whispers to come.

But he doesn't want to lose what little sense he has left. No, he cannot let anything happen to him now, not when he'd come so far with Pewdie. He mustn't. He'd vowed to get through this, that nothing mattered to him except to keep moving ahead. This outburst of his is unlike him and he and Pewdie both know it.

Cry turns his face away, feeling embarrassed by his behaviour, and pulls off his glasses to scrub the hot tears from his eyes before they have a chance to fall. His body, he notices, is trembling uncontrollably again.

He feels Pewdie's hand land on his shoulder, to an area a lot closer to his neck, squeezing it and steadying his trembling. The other man says gently to him, "Hey, believe it or not, Cry – we sure showed those zombies."

Cry frowns, shooting Pewdie a look of exasperation, feeling awfully tired after his outburst. "What the hell are you talking about?" he mutters resignedly. "Show them _what_?"

"Oh, you know. That we have a better chance at winning the hundred-metre race in the next Zombie-Olympic Games than they do," Pewdie offers the rather pathetic joke with a silly grin. Maybe it is _because_ it is a pathetic joke – and definitely not the best one he can come up with – that a short giggly laugh bursts out of Cry's lips. Instantly, his chest feels noticeably lighter and the crushing emotions which had overwhelmed him are no longer that heavy on his being. He can't believe that a bad joke can change his state of mind so fast like that.

(Goddammit, Pewds, Cry thinks fondly with a smile.)

"Hey," Pewdie says again once Cry finishes laughing and this time, his voice is sharp and a lot more serious. There is a sternness in his expression as he fixes his watchful gaze on Cry. "You're not losing your shit now on my watch, are you?" he asks carefully. There's a little bit of a mocking tone in there but it is designed to mask the seriousness of the subject.

"Fuck no," Cry says, and he means it. He doesn't want to give in so easily. This might be a one-time thing, losing his cool like that. But he isn't going to let that happen again in future, not when he knows that doing so would jeopardise their situation.

Pewdie doesn't respond immediately but takes a second to study him, his eyes carefully reading Cry's face. Then, his mouth breaks into a grin. "That's my Crybaby," he teases and Cry can very clearly see the worry melting into absolute relief on the other man's face following his reassurance.

"'Crybaby'?" Cry snorts, pretending not to be bothered by Pewdie's genuine concern for him. Also, he's embarrassed at the possibility that Pewdie must have seen the tears in his eyes during his emotional rant. " _Tch_. Shut up."

"You know you love it," Pewdie quips playfully and gets on his feet, letting water drip off his soaked clothes. He gives his glow stick a few shakes as he takes a few steps forward into the darkness – and suddenly stops.

There is a brief pause. "Cry," Pewdie calls sharply. The other man is staring straight ahead, his eyes narrowed into a squint. Cry quickly gets up, gathering his things with him, and stumbles to Pewdie's side. What is it? He thinks. Is someone here? More zombies? He follows Pewdie's line of sight, trying to see what the other man can see but to no avail. It is much too dark to make anything out. He curses his limited eyesight and briefly considers wiping his wet glasses in hopes for a better look.

Before he can do any of that though, Pewdie suddenly acts, lifting his glow stick in the air, pulling it back and then hurling it into the darkness. They watch as it sails in the air, spinning in a radiant whirl of red, and collide against something solid and metallic. Cry catches a glimpse of a thin swinging chain, some sort of wall made of wire mesh and – a _doorknob_.

The locked door. They made it. They fucking _made_ it.

"Ohhh, Minecraft," Pewdie exclaims softly and there's a smile creeping in his voice.

Cry wastes no more time splashing across the shallow pool they're in and almost trips when his foot catches the edge of some concrete steps which lead to a dry platform. Once he reaches Pewdie's glow stick, he picks it up from the ground and eagerly shines it all around the doorknob, realising that the whole thing – the doorknob, the wire mesh and the chain – are all part of a caged door. This is their way out of this terrible hellhole. He thinks he has never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

When he senses Pewdie sidling next to him, Cry turns, his eyes wide, and opens his mouth. There's something he wants to say to the other man, something important, but his heart is racing so fast in his chest in a fit of bursting excitement that his words continuously elude him.

Pewdie reaches over and plucks the red glow stick cleanly out of his hands. He then holds it closely to the doorknob and motions towards the rusty lock with a nudge of his head. "What are you waiting for, bro?" Pewdie says with a laugh, having noticed Cry's speechlessness. "Let's get the heck out of here already."

For once, Cry agrees. Grinning, he takes out the lock pick pouch, crouches down by the doorknob and immediately gets to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [So I really wanted Pewds to call Cry 'Crybaby' just once in this fic. Also, Pewdie saying "Ohhhh, Minecraft" is probably one of my favourite things he says.]
> 
> The sewer tunnel featured here is actually based off the ones in 'Outlast', and the "locked door" is also inspired from the caged doors you usually find to be locked in the 'Outlast' games. I've been getting random Outlast Feels lately so elements from that game somehow found their way into this fic. So there.
> 
> Notice that in the parting remarks scene between PDC and the group, each remark is 'characteristic' of that character. For example, Delta's optimism (and almost-hug), Vegas's casual threat, the Anorak's suggestive piece of advice, Barbetta's concise remark and Tesla's puzzling instructions. Yeah, I sort of wrote that deliberately because I can.
> 
> Quite a few things in this chapter are reminiscent of previous ones. Firstly, there is this: "Just like before, [Cry] is stuck between wanting to run away and not wanting to run away" and yes, you guessed it. Cry had gone through the same thing too, with Alistair and Jim, when Cry is torn between two decisions but is unable to act upon either of them, knowing that both would still lead to him getting hurt.
> 
> Finally, we've got the period during Cry's panic, his loss of self-control and his eventual emotional outburst just before they find the locked door. If you think about it, it's sort of similar to his experience in his and Pewdie's first supply run in that hardware store way back in Chapter 3- they're running through a horde of zombies who are (likely) chasing them and once they escape, they're stunned and in complete disbelief at the fact that they're still alive. Even Cry is reduced to some sobbing by this point.
> 
> In this chapter though, something else happens. Cry suddenly unleashes an emotional outburst, saying things like "How are we even fucking alive?... We should've died... Why are we not dead yet?" and he and Pewdie both know that something seems quite off with him. After all, Cry doesn't usually lose his cool like that, he usually keeps everything together and he's always forward-driven, always thinking about moving on and not losing his focus. But here, we might have seen a small glimpse of what may be (what Pewdie calls) Cry "losing [his] shit". And that's a possibility. After what Cry had gone through (and the things that may/may not happen to him in future), maybe - just maybe - this might be a sign for something even more ominous to come.
> 
> On another note, this chapter was supposed to be longer. So much longer. Because I originally planned on writing the whole Raid/Op scene in just one installment. But then I looked at the word count while writing this and went, "Oh my god, I'd already reached 10K+ and I'm still at the bloody tunnel scene, goddammit." Yeah, so I figured 10K+ words is enough for this month.
> 
> And lastly, hurrah! It's September (at least, it is in our side of the world). It's been almost a whole year since this writing project started. I'm astonished at how far I've gone, how much it is that I've written and how many readers there are who are following this story. Thank you so much everyone for sticking around and waiting so long for every chapter that had been updated. You've been such lovely readers, dropping kudos and comments/reviews every once in a while. Thank you so much for the support, guys. It really means so much to me.
> 
> As usual, do continue to leave kudos/comments/reviews if you enjoyed this so far. It's been a great journey and we're still not done yet! See you lovelies in the next chapter.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold on to your mugs of tea, lovelies. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

**18.**

The moment he felt the manhole cover that he and Cry have been trying to move dislodge from its metal base, Pewdie cannot help but cry out in relief. "Oh my god," he gasps, feeling his arms ache from the exertion. We're almost out! We're almost outside!

Beside him, balancing on one side of the metal ladder while Pewdie clings onto the other, Cry groans, his arms shaking from the strain of pushing against the metal cover above them. The stupid thing had been far too heavy for Pewdie to push it on his own so in the end, Cry had stashed his glow stick into his bag, climbed up beside him and lent him his strength. Working in the red light of Pewdie's own glow stick, it had taken them longer than five minutes to even feel the circular plate budge from its place, but their continued perseverance and their reluctance to stay longer underground had compelled them to keep going until they became successful.

"Keep – _pushing_ – Pewds," Cry growls, his jaw clenched tightly as he leans his weight into his palms and pushes against the manhole cover. He seems to have gone back to his old self again, back to being cool and composed and focused on the task at hand, and Pewdie is grateful that whatever state Cry was in after they'd escaped the tunnel had passed. He'd been taken aback at first by the other man's outburst; recognising the frazzled look of someone on the verge of hysterics, but he feels confident that Cry won't try to lose his composure like that again. The realisation dawning in the other man's eyes at his own behaviour assures him that. At least, that is what Pewdie hopes. He has to admit that he'd been a little scared at first during that scenario – because the last thing he wants is for one of them to go mad in an underground tunnel filled with zombies.

After several minutes of persistent pushing, they manage to lift the cover high enough to slide it to the side, creating a sliver of a gap to the outside world. Pewdie had been expecting the first wisps of fresh air to seep into the shaft or the view of the cloudy sky to greet him. What he doesn't expect is the roar of heavy rain reaching his ears and the large puddle of rainwater pouring into the gap and splashing right onto his face.

" _Aargh_!" Pewdie cries out and regrets it afterwards when water fills his nose and mouth. He almost lets go of the ladder in surprise and if it had not been for Cry grabbing him by the collar and yanking him away from the pouring stream on the last second, he would have done so and fallen off. Coughing and feeling his nostrils burn, Pewdie shakes his head to clear the water from his eyes.

"You okay?" Cry asks and Pewdie groans as he unsuccessfully tries to blow a strand of wet hair from his face.

"Yeah," he splutters in response, feeling annoyed that he'd been assaulted by rainwater like this. "Let's just get out of this hole, man. I don't care about the damn rain. I'm so sick of staying down here."

It takes them another minute or two to drag the circular plate to the side and completely uncover their manhole. Once it is done, Pewdie tosses his glow stick away and doesn't waste any more time clambering out of that opening, feeling the full force of the rain lashing onto him and soaking him from head to toe in seconds. Exhausted, he lands on a puddle and rests on his side to catch his breath. Cry pulls himself out after him and lies there on his stomach, his shoulders heaving with every breath he takes.

"We made it," Cry says, although his voice is almost drowned by the downpour. "Holy shit. We made it." And then, when he lifts his head, he suddenly jerks back in surprise, his movements splashing the puddles they're resting on. " _What_ the–?" His face twists into an expression of horror and disgust.

Pewdie turns his head, pushing his sopping wet hair back from his face, and squints into the rain at the object that had startled Cry. Instantly, his stomach drops unpleasantly when he makes out what it is. A mound of burnt mangled flesh sits several feet away from them. Pewdie can just about discern the rotted limbs and disfigured heads in the pile, smell the stench of the burnt undead mixed with the scent of earth and rain. He grimaces, averting his attention elsewhere, and realises for the first time that behind this blackened pile of zombie bodies, there's a tall wall stretching all around them as its backdrop, topped with rolls and rolls of sharp, barbed wire. It seems that he and Cry are inside some sort of large compound and Pewdie can see that it is dimly lit by electric lamps, their golden beams struggling to burn through the downpour. A quick glance at the rest of their surroundings reveal a wet mound of what looks like charred-black household rubbish, a large pile of broken machinery, a stack of discarded oil drums, wooden crates and some enormous pipes. About fifty yards away, two or three working vehicles – jeeps and a military truck by the looks of them – are parked together, facing a pair of heavily chained gate doors.

It is then when a flash of white lights up their surroundings, blinding Pewdie for a second, before a clap of thunder crashes overhead, sudden and explosive like the discharge of a cannon. Pewdie jumps at the noise, ducking and unconsciously covering his head with his arms in the process. _Shit_ , he yelps, aware that his heart had begun pounding hard against his chest. He can feel the anxiety and trepidation for the next clap of thunder lingering in the forefront of his mind. All of a sudden, he realises just how exposed they are out here in the open.

"Over there!" Cry's urgent tug towards the cover of the oil drums allows him some relief. Pewdie scrambles after the other man and squeezes next to him into a niche in the disorganised stack which he finds isn't much of a good shelter from the storm. The space they're in is too small, barely providing enough cover for the both of them. The wind decides to pick up then, blowing the lashing rain onto their faces and making them huddle together like penguins in a snowstorm.

"Where the hell are we?" Pewdie mutters into Cry's ear, finding some comfort in their closeness as he battles to keep his breathing steady and calm down his pounding heart. Peering out into the rain, he studies everything within sight from their position. The walls surrounding this place are high – even higher than the barrier back at the Fire House. The mounds of burnt flesh, rubbish and broken machinery seem to suggest that this section of the compound is being used as a dumping ground. From what Pewdie is able to observe, there doesn't seem to be anyone in sight – no other survivors, no patrolling guards, no people at all. The area they're in is completely empty and for good reason too: no one wants to be out in a storm like this.

"We're obviously inside the camp," Cry replies to Pewdie's muttering although it is not the answer the latter seeks. Pewdie wants to know where they are _exactly,_ which way do they go now, and whereabouts can they light up their firecrackers if they are to distract the people who live here? He also wants to get all of this done quickly so that he can go back to the safe and dry surroundings of the Fire House. He watches Cry stick his head out in the rain and peer over the side of an oil drum before withdrawing. Then, with a motion of his head, he invites Pewdie to do the same, "Look."

Following Cry's example, Pewdie does so, feeling the raindrops pelting onto his face and blurring his vision a little, but he sees it. About several yards away, he is able to make out some steps leading up to a low redbrick building with a flat roof. A small wall light illuminates a lone chair that is placed near the door of the structure. Pewdie feels a flutter of relief at the sight of shelter. At least they can get out of this damn storm. He meets Cry's expectant gaze the moment he turns to him and they both silently agree to make their way to the building.

Ducking back under the relentless downpour, they quickly cross the wet, grassy enclosure, hunched over and weighed down by the rain battering onto their bodies, by the puddles of water sloshing at their feet. It is a relief when they reach the building and Cry stops by the door first, taking a second to press his ear onto the surface to listen. Once satisfied, he then pulls the door open and lets them both slip inside.

The sound of the rain becomes muffled the moment they enter the edifice. In its place is the rumble of machinery. The area they're in is mostly shrouded in gloom and only a single dim lamp on the wall is its source of light, just bright enough to cast shadows across the floor. Pewdie can feel the vast space of the room – the ceiling must be much higher than he expected because he spots a flight of stairs going up to a grilled platform. The rest of the place is plain and unfurnished except for a couple of lockers filled with hard hats, a control panel dotted with buttons and dials stacked at one end of the wall, some large pipes twisting from the ceiling to the floor and a bulky cylindrical piece of machinery that is attached to a larger circular metallic plate behind it. It is this object which is emitting the vibrating and rumbling sounds in the room and Cry treads forward to study it, unaware that water is dripping from his soaked clothes onto the concrete floor.

"What is this thing?" he murmurs, squinting in the dim light as Pewdie sidles next to him. "Where _are_ we?"

"Never mind that," Pewdie tells him, even though he, himself, is wondering the same thing. "Where _is_ everybody?"

"Good question," Cry agrees and they fall into mutual silence, wincing a little when they hear a roar of thunder overhead, the noise lasting longer than its predecessor. Underneath their feet, the concrete floor shakes ever so slightly from the impact. Pewdie catches Cry's expression of concern. "Shit. We need to move," the other man says worriedly, nudging Pewdie towards the stairs. "I don't know how long the rain's been falling since we got here. But we're behind schedule. The others are probably waiting for our signal right now. We have to hurry."

"Do you know where we're supposed to go?" Pewdie dares to ask because it suddenly occurs to him now that he has no clue what they should do. So far, he knows that they have to create a distraction using some firecrackers but where can they plant their item if they don't even know where they are? He realises with regret that he hadn't bothered to ask any more details about this op from the group. Instead, he'd been far more concerned about making it through the tunnel of zombies than he was to the situation that came after that.

"We need to find some sort of bridge," Cry reveals much to Pewdie's surprise as they climb up the steps to the platform, passing by a handwritten sign that warns the reader: "DON'T DISREGARD YOUR SAFETY. WEAR A HARD HAT AT ALL TIMES", before they spot a door at the far end. Pewdie can't help but hear a note of uncertainty in Cry's voice, as if the other man isn't completely sure of his own words. Cry then elaborates, "We need to find a bridge. Get to someplace low with obstructions or something. Then, we set off the firecrackers there. At least, that's what Tesla told me to do."

At the mention of the name, Pewdie immediately recalls seeing Tesla grabbing Cry's hand prior to their descent into the manhole, remembers her whispering something into his ear. So _that_ was she was saying, he realises. Why would she say that? Why would she tell Cry this? Pewdie had wondered for a moment what it was that had been exchanged between Cry and Tesla in their brief interaction; wondered what their relationship was like since they'd spoken to each other more than once; wonders whether Tesla behaved differently when she spoke to Cry as well. He stops himself from addressing this aloud on the last second though. It isn't the right time to have a conversation and especially not when they are in the middle of a mission like this one.

He follows Cry to the door at the end of the platform before standing back and watching the other man press his ear onto the surface to listen once more. About thirty seconds later, Cry draws back, frowning a little. "I don't hear any voices," he reports. "But I _do_ hear something else. Like water. And lots of it."

"The rain?" Pewdie presumes. Cry doesn't reply but pulls the door open instead. They're greeted by the outside world again, to the heavy rain and something else – the crashing and splashing of a large volume of water. Pewdie's eyes widen at the sight before them. The lamps hanging overhead reveal that they are looking at a bridge which stretches from their building to another larger redbrick edifice on the other side. The bridge is built right on top of a fast-flowing river – perhaps the same river they had followed all those weeks ago – but its current had been intensified by the downpour and Pewdie is astonished by just how alive it looks. He watches the way this powerful body of water rushes wildly out of the darkness and surge into view of the electric lights like a mad animal – all before disappearing underneath the bridge, emerging on the other side and being swallowed up again by the night.

When he averts his gaze away from the swift flowing waters, Pewdie notices that there are two flights of stairs on either end of the bridge which descend to the underside of the structure. On the bridge walkway itself, however, two large bulb-shaped pieces of machinery protrude out of the middle of the path as if they had grown right out of the floor panels. Both of them are humming and whirring in life. The more he stares at these strange contraptions though, the more Pewdie realises that he has actually _seen_ them before. His mind automatically puts together the cylindrical machine downstairs, the fast-flowing river and the power lines which he'd just noticed are hanging above them. Of _course_.

"No fucking way," Cry must have come to the same conclusion as well because he lets out a dry laugh and shakes his head at what he sees. "This is a power plant. _The_ power plant. The one that runs on water. Who could've thought we were coming _here_?"

"Why didn't the others tell us?" Pewdie tries to say above the mixture of rain and river, still bewildered by this realisation.

"I don't know why they didn't tell us a lot of things," Pewdie hears Cry reply beside him. The other man is frowning and looking thoughtful at the same time. "Goddammit, I'd been more worried about the zombies instead of what the plan really involved us doing."

"Well, we found the bridge," Pewdie points out before motioning towards the redbrick edifice on the other side. "So let's do this," he then recommends. "Let's just fucking run and get this whole shitty thing over and done with before someone sees us sneaking around."

Despite Pewdie's suggestion, they don't make a run for it. Somehow, the knowledge of the swift river surging underneath makes them tread forward with cautious steps. The rain falling onto the bridge had formed puddles at their feet and its excess water runs off the sides of the walkway into the river below. Surprisingly, the wet floor panels they walk on are rough and not as slippery as Pewdie expected. He and Cry reach the other side of the bridge and slip through the door of the next building, thankful once more to be back on dry ground again. It is not long before the sight of a lit lantern ahead makes them both freeze in alarm.

Oh shit, Pewdie thinks, daring not to move or breathe, even when the water in his sodden hair trickles irritatingly close to his eyes.

The lantern in question has been set on top of a console – another device with buttons and dials – and he and Cry can see a man sitting in a swivel chair in front of it, wearing a yellow hard hat. The stranger appears to be sleeping, judging from the way his body seems slumped all over the chair. Pewdie shoots a quick desperate look at Cry, finding the other man at a loss as well. What should they do? Should they try to sneak past the man? Or would it be better to knock him unconscious instead? But Pewdie has never knocked someone unconscious before and he isn't sure if he wants to do so either.

After a few contemplative seconds, he looks over at Cry again and notices the resolution in the other man's expression, albeit one of reluctance. Cry is going for it, he realises, and sure enough, he watches the other man readying his shovel in his hands. Cry begins to creep forward, carefully and with miniscule movements and Pewdie, out of habit, automatically follows after him. He sees the way Cry nervously licks his lips, the erratic way he breathes; the nervousness in his gaze. They've never done this before. How different is it to bash a living man on the head compared to that of a zombie? Can Cry deliver a blow hard enough to only render him unconscious?

They inch forward, closer and closer towards the light, until they're only about a metre away from the sleeping man. Pewdie chooses this moment to hang back and let Cry continue. He watches the other man shakily lift his shovel, take another step forward and stop directly behind their target. Pewdie holds his breath. Swallows. Braces himself for the blow. Seconds pass by in silence. No one moves for a while.

Then suddenly, unexpectedly, Cry relaxes and lowers his shovel, breaking the tension of the room. Pewdie gapes in response, confused at what had happened, and watches Cry walk over to one side of the chair to peer at the man's face. A second later, he straightens up from his slouch. The expression he pulls as he looks at Pewdie is a grim one.

"This man is dead," Cry reports, his voice coming out in a quiet murmur. There is something awfully haunting about the way he says it which perturbs Pewdie, making him scuttle forward and settle next to him. Pewdie sees a little bit of the stranger's face, hidden under the yellow hard hat in the light of the lantern: a heavily bearded man with average features and an unhealthy look of someone who had lost a lot of weight. What strikes him as alarming is the state of the man's neck, swollen red and faintly marked with bruises. The man isn't just dead. He'd been _killed._

There is a brief stretch of silence, one of speechless shock.

"How did you know?" Pewdie finds himself whispering to Cry once his voice returns to him. He doesn't know what to feel about this – whether he should be sad that this man had been strangled to death or worried that his attacker might still be at large.

"Look at the back of his head," Cry simply replies and Pewdie does so. There is a small bloody hole at the base of the man's skull, as if something long, thin and sharp had pierced it. Cry adds, "I noticed that stab wound first so when I went to take a closer look, I found the bruise marks."

"Why would you stab and strangle someone at the same time?" Pewdie muses aloud.

"Not at the same time," Cry corrects. "The strangling came first. The stabbing was so that the guy doesn't come back as a zombie."

"Still, why bother strangling him if stabbing could have done a better job?" Pewdie murmurs thoughtfully but either way, the thought of murder makes his stomach churn unpleasantly. "Geez, I wonder what happened. Some really bad shit, maybe?"

After another stretch of silence, this time one of contemplation, Cry breaks it by saying, "We should keep going. Come on."

They wander deeper into the room, finding more buttoned consoles and control panels, and eventually come across another door. After a quick inspection – listening through it for voices and hearing nothing but more sounds of rumbling machinery inside – Cry allows them to go through it. The door opens up to a platform which overlooks a large deep chamber, made accessible by two flights of steps flanked on either end which lead down to it. The lights of the chamber are weakly lit but its meagre glow is enough to illuminate the three giant rumbling wheel-like engines protruding from the floor. Pewdie can see the movement of their rotating vanes and, after a second, recognises exactly what they are. _Turbines_ , he notes down.

Beside him, Cry takes a step forward and puts his hands on the railings of their platform, staring down at the turbines below them. Realisation dawns on his face. He turns to say something to Pewdie but his words are drowned by the reverberating sound of the engines. Pewdie comes over and offers the other man his ear.

"This is it," Cry points out excitedly. "We set the firecrackers off down here."

"You sure?" Pewdie asks, examining the deep chamber below them. He notices other pieces of machinery littering that area as well as the yellow and black barricade tape stuck to the floor around each of the turbines.

"Yeah. 'Someplace low with lots of obstructions,'" Cry recites and then tugs on Pewdie's arm, pulling him towards the stairs. "Come on. Looks like there's no one down there right now. Let's move."

They make their way down a flight of steps, passing the many windows of the building and seeing the deluge of raindrops racing down their glass panels. Pewdie realises he'd been staring at the windows for too long when a flash of lightning makes him startle and pause for a moment, bracing himself for the roar of thunder that follows a few seconds later, the impact making the windowpanes to rattle. He winces and continues his descent, catching up to Cry, who is waiting for him at the bottom.

The moment his foot leaves the last step and he treads onto the landing, he can feel the vibration of the turbine's engines under his feet. It's darker down here than it is when they had been on the platform, with many corners draped in shadows. The sight of the turbines looming over them at close range brings about a sense of awe. Cry stops in front of the nearest one, gazing up at its impressive structure in fascination while Pewdie chooses to hang back instead, revelling in the feeling of the engines' power from where he stands.

There's something beautiful about the way these turbines are constructed, piece by piece, to create such a powerful machine. Pewdie imagines for a second how the gallons of water churning below them are turning the vanes of the turbine, creating energy that is converted into electricity by an unseen generator. It's _amazing_ , he thinks, and it's funny that he comes to appreciate the marvels of manmade technology this late when in the past, he'd merely taken them for granted. Now that the reality he once knew had crumbled and collapsed at his feet, he begins to see things – the simple mechanism of a turbine, the architecture of the power plant, the power of electricity – for what they are. He wistfully wonders whether there is a possibility that things will go back to the way they were.

Pewdie returns to the present when a flash of lightning decides to make its presence through the windows. He grimaces at the reverberating roar of thunder, making him turn his head away and realise that Cry had wandered off while he'd been lost in thought. He frowns a little, wanting to chide the other man for separating from him but changes his mind afterwards when he finds that their distances aren't too far away from each other. He can still see Cry, half-hidden behind the bulk of another piece of machinery that Pewdie doesn't recognise. Perhaps he should go and join him instead, Pewdie decides. He should probably ready those the firecrackers too, in case they happen to find a good spot to plant them.

Pewdie unloads his bag off his back, putting one hand on the zipper, and takes a step forward. Then, out of nowhere, something long and muscular – an arm, wraps itself around his neck, tightens its grip around his throat and crushes him back against something solid, a large masculine chest. Suddenly, no air. He can't breathe. No, no, he can't _breathe._ Blind panic assaults Pewdie's mind next. He thrashes, dropping his bag to the ground and grabs onto the limb around his neck, opens his mouth to yell. He's terrified when nothing comes out and nothing comes in. Not his voice. Not air. Oh god, he can't breathe, he can't _breathe._ Bare skin and rough hairs of the arm brush against his jawline as he struggles. Without thinking, he sinks his teeth into that limb as deep and as hard as he can.

His attacker jerks in pain, cursing and shoving him off, and Pewdie is free. He sucks in a breath of air before a hand grabs him by his collar, dragging him backwards, forcefully turning him around. The next thing he knows, a fist slams into his face. His cheek blooms in heat at the contact and he stumbles backwards, his sense of balance momentarily lost, feeling more stunned and surprised by the blow than actually hurt by it.

For a few short seconds, his eyes focus on the larger build of his attacker before him – a man with a beanie on his head and only half of his face visible in the limited light – who is then suddenly on him, wrestling him to the floor. Pewdie feels the solid ground pressing against his back, the heavy weight of the man trapping his lower body and he thrashes again, yelling, but his voice is lost in the sound of rotating turbines. Then there are fingers on his neck, fingers tightening and squeezing hard, and pain, pain, _pain,_ god-awful pain, no air, _no air,_ can't breathe, can't breathe, it hurts, stop it, oh god please stop please stop, please don't kill me please don't kill me _please,_ black spots blink and blur across his vision, blending with the roar of blood rushing in his ears, his body falls, his mind falls, he falls, he falls.

And then darkness.

 

Cry is alarmed by the sight he sees when he walks back from around one of the turbines and comes across an unfamiliar man with a beanie hat straddling a squirming body underneath him. In one second, Cry sees that the stranger's fingers are wrapped around another man's neck. In one second, Cry recognises that the struggling man, who is desperately clawing at the hands on his throat, is Pewdie.

 _Pewdie_.

A wave of shock hits him like a bucket of ice. Then, panic and fear. Then, anger. Cry grabs onto his shovel and sprints, closing the gap between them, not hesitating as he swings his weapon down onto the attacker's head. After a _clang_ that manages to pierce through the din of the turbines, the unknown man slumps forward, landing on top of Pewdie. Cry tosses away his shovel, not caring about it for once, and goes to drag the body off. At once, his anger leaves him and fear takes its place.

"Pewds!" he yells, his voice shaking, breaking into hysterics. " _Pewds!"_

When he looks down at Pewdie, the first thing he sees is what scares him the most: there are abrasions on Pewdie's neck – visible red marks that have been scratched into his skin by his own fingernails in the attempt to fight off his assailant. Cry hovers above him, uncertain, his heart in his mouth, his mind panicking, unfocused. He notices the red welt shining on Pewdie's left cheek – he'd been hit in the face – and the tiny red pinpricks peppering the skin under his eyelids; notices that Pewdie hadn't woken up yet, hadn't moved at all. Is he breathing? Oh god, is he breathing? Is he _breathing_?

Cry can't concentrate, can't pull himself together and think, and he's angry and frustrated that he can't. He wants to know what to do to fix this because he knows that every second right now counts _._ Come on, is Pewdie _breathing_ , Cry? Can you _see_? He doesn't know, he can't focus, can't look hard enough, fuck, what should he do, he needs to make Pewdie breathe. Should he– what should he–? Fuck, fuck, _fuck_! Cry grabs onto the back of his head in distress, fingers clutching at his hair. He's gasping, wheezing, swallowing, trying to think above the noise of the turbines. Come on, Cry. Think, think, think! What do I have in my bag? Is there anything in my bag I can use? Glow sticks, respirator, water bottle, bandages. Dammit! Fucking bandages won't help make Pewdie breathe. There's nothing in this stupid empty backpack at all. What else? Come on, Cry. What _else_?

 _CPR_! Is the first useful thing that his mind throws at him and he is about to reach down and grab Pewdie's face when he stops in mid-action, at once realising something important, something that makes him angry at himself, angry at everything around him. Stupid Cry! This is different! Pewdie didn't _drown_ , you idiot. He'd been _strangled_. There's no water in his lungs. There's nothing to clear. And I don't fucking know how to do CPR properly anyway. What-what about his pulse? Is his heart still beating? You have to check. Check his heart. Check his pulse. Where-where is it? How do I find it? In his throat? In his wrist? Fuck, I can't find it– his pulse, I can't fucking find it I'm pressing everywhere and I can't find it goddammit how do you tell if– fuck I don't _know_. Maybe. Maybe–

A terrible feeling overcomes him then, born from the frantic thoughts racing wildly in his head and Cry sits back in defeat, taking slow, rattling intakes of breath. He stares down at Pewdie lying there before him, stares at the fingernail marks etched onto the skin of his neck. Never has he felt this helpless and at a complete loss before. He doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know what had happened, how this incident happened in the first place, why this is even happening at all. If only he knows what it is he should do to save Pewdie. But he doesn't. That's the problem. He fucking, fucking _doesn't_.

His eyes start to burn. His throat tightens. Cry presses a hand onto his mouth, trying desperately to hold everything back – the wave of disbelief, of sadness, of grief, of loss – while he lays his other hand on Pewdie's shoulder. He tries to shake it, tries to shake Pewdie back into consciousness but he finds himself too weak to do so. His strength is gone. He feels exhausted. He wants to collapse. He wants to be sick. He wants to scream. He wants to fall into pieces. The hand pressing hard over his mouth is shaking violently, nails digging into his skin. A sharp sob escapes his constricted throat. His vision blurs. Pewds. Pewds. Pewds. No. No. No. No. No.

And then Pewdie suddenly lets out a gasp, his body buckling out of stillness, and starts coughing violently. Cry jumps at the abrupt movement, alarmed at first at the thought that Pewdie might have risen as a reanimated corpse, but realises that coughing meant he was _alive,_ and immediately seizes him by his front.

"Oh thank god," Cry gasps shakily, feeling the relief wash over him. He rubs away the warm wetness in his eyes and exhales again. "Ohhh, thank _god_."

Pewdie continues to cough and struggle to breathe, heaving in large gulps of air, and Cry inches closer to him, not once loosening his hold. He's alarmed once more when he sees that there are more tiny red dots sprinkled over the whites of Pewdie's eyes as the latter blinks them open.

"Pewds," Cry calls, sniffling and trying to steady his own voice. "Pewds, hey. _Hey_. You okay, buddy?"

Pewdie blinks up at him for a while, seemingly unaware of the state of his eyes, before he opens his mouth and says something that is completely inaudible in the din of the machines. Cry leans his head down to offer Pewdie his ear.

"What happened to me?" Pewdie's voice comes out small and hoarse and it is another thing that he is worried about.

"Some asshole tried to strangle you," Cry answers and shoots a glare at Pewdie's attacker lying a little away from them. "Fuck, man," he adds, and his voice is shaking with emotion again. "I thought... I thought you were dead."

"Wait," Pewdie says, frowning, and Cry has to lean down again to catch the rest of his words: "Where _are_ we anyway?"

Cry patiently explains to him of their situation, right up to the unexpected attack and Cry's interference. Once Pewdie catches up on the story, he looks over at the unmoving body of his assailant and is silent for a while. "Did you kill him?" Pewdie's words are hesitant.

Cry feels a spike of fear go up his spine at the question, at the idea of murder, and he tries his best to ignore it. Instead, he continues to glare at the attacker's distasteful beanie as if it had personally offended him. "I don't know. And I don't care," he answers a little too quickly.

"Because if you did..." Pewdie rasps into Cry's ear.

"Well, he was an asshole," Cry cuts in, trying to avert the topic and not think about the consequences of his actions. "He tried to kill _you_ ," he then emphasises, more to himself than to Pewdie.

Something changes in Pewdie's face, as if he is suddenly recalling the incident piece by piece, and Cry recognises the fear shining in his reddened eyes. "I thought I was going to die," Pewdie confesses, his voice breaking, sounding close to tears.

Recognising the other man's distress, Cry reaches out to pat him on the shoulder. "But you're still alive," he reminds him with a smile of reassurance. "And thank god you're alive. You're okay now. You're safe for now. Can you get up?"

"Yeah," Pewdie clumsily pushes himself up to a sitting position and then starts to sway, overcome by a sudden dizzy spell. Cry quickly grabs onto him, supporting him.

"Whoa, whoa, take it easy," he says worriedly, letting Pewdie lean against him. "I'll help you up. Just keep breathing, okay?"

It takes a while to get Pewdie to stand on his own feet. Once Cry cautiously lets him go, the other man winces and reaches up to gingerly touch his neck. "It stings," he tells Cry. "It's also kind of hard to swallow." He freezes, suddenly noticing the state of his fingernails, the blood underneath them.

"What–?" Pewdie looks horrified. He reaches for his neck again.

"Don't touch it," Cry scolds sharply, pulling Pewdie's hand away and stopping him from tracing the abrasions on his skin. "Look, we'll get you checked up soon, okay? Okay? But first, we have to set off these damn firecrackers. Then we get the fuck out of this place. Alright? Alright, Pewds?" The desperation must have been obvious in his voice because Pewdie bobs his head in compliance at him.

Still shaken by the incident, Cry leaves him standing there for a while to quickly go and collect his shovel and Pewdie's fallen backpack. When he passes the still body of the other man's attacker though, he pauses for a moment. A quick inspection reveals that the man is still alive and breathing and this discovery causes something to uncoil in Cry's chest, making his shoulders and his conscience feel a little lighter in weight. As much as he might hate the man for what he tried to do to Pewdie, Cry doesn't want to resort to murder. He doesn't think he can live with the weight of those actions if that were to happen. Killing zombies is one thing. Killing a living person is entirely another.

"I think he was the one who killed that guy upstairs," Pewdie's hoarse voice, spoken so near to his ear, startles him. The other man had sidled next to him and joined him in his examination. Cry doesn't reply to the suggestion but considers its validity and finds it likely to be the case. Still, the question that Pewdie brought up upstairs returns to him again. Why _did_ this beanie-headed man strangle the one with the hard hat in the first place? What would happen once the latter's death is discovered by his peers? And for the record, why was the body left there and not tossed into the river to cover up the murder?

It seems unnecessary to mull upon the politics surrounding these people – because really, it was none of their business and they shouldn't even care – but Cry can't shake off the feeling that something feels off about this. That something else is at work that he and Pewdie are unaware of.

He glances at the other man, intending to share his gut feeling with him, and notices the way he stares down intensely at his unconscious assailant. Pewdie seems anxious, drawing in shallow breaths before trying swallow, albeit with some difficulty. Cry only senses that something is wrong when he feels Pewdie's fingers grasping his sleeve again, when he finally realises that the latter is in a state of distress, coming face-to-face with the man who tried to strangle him to death.

He reaches out, placing his hand on Pewdie's arm, squeezing it gently.

"Leave him," he says, and then gives the arm a coaxing tug. "Let's get going."

He's reassured a little when Pewdie walks alongside him without staggering or taking any tentative steps. The other man doesn't seem to be showing any further indication of injury or trauma as well, making Cry feel hopeful that he must be recovering from his attack. Cry leads him past the turbines, feeling the power of the rumbling engines through the vibrations in the concrete floor, and keeps his eyes and ears out for any more unsuspecting persons about. They run into no one in the next five minutes. Then Pewdie pulls him to a stop when they come into sight of two identical yellow doors located just underneath the overhead platform they had stood on upstairs.

They stare at the doors for a while before Cry says, "You think we should go through there?" Immediately, a frown crosses Pewdie's face following the suggestion.

" _No_ ," he says sharply and Cry is taken aback by the sudden aggression in his tone. "We don't know where they go, could be outside, could be anywhere. This looks like the end of the line. You said Tesla wants us to set off the firecrackers down here, right? Then let's just stick to this place, let's–let's just set them off and fucking run, okay? Get this-this-this _stupid_ job done." The rushed tone and the stuttering exposes Pewdie's agitation and Cry realises that the other man hadn't fully recovered from his attack after all. He seems eager to leave this place as soon as possible and for good reason too.

"Alright, alright," Cry says patiently, wanting to calm him down. "We'll set them off here, like you said." Pewdie nods slowly and goes to lower his backpack but Cry stops him. "You stay here," he tells the other man firmly. " _I'll_ do this. You should save your strength. We'll need it when we run."

When Cry pulls the roll of firecrackers out of its plastic wrapping, the whole thing unravels from its initial wheel-like shape to hang from his hand like the severed tail of an animal. The double rows of red tubes strung together strongly remind him of an ammunition belt for a machine gun. He casts a quick look back at Pewdie, who is clutching and pulling at the hem of his shirt impatiently, before going off to plant the firecrackers. The closer he approaches the yellow doors though, the more Cry becomes aware of how nervous he is, of how his insides are squirming unpleasantly. He wonders whether this might be what it feels like trying to plant a bomb. He crouches, setting the firecrackers on the concrete. Breathes.

Alright, he thinks, clutching the lighter in his hand. Just light it. Just light it and run.

The moment Cry holds the flame of the lighter to the tip of the fuse, it begins to sizzle and spit out sparks. He drops the fuse instinctively, hissing at the stinging, burning sensation on his fingertips, and quickly straightens up from his crouch and begins to run back to Pewdie, aware that they only have a limited amount of time before the firecrackers go off. He and Pewdie grab onto each other just as Cry reaches him and together, they stumble past the turbines and the other pieces of machinery, not once thinking about looking back. Just as they reach the bottom of the stairs, the firecrackers explode.

The noise is something unexpected, a series of continuous bursts like the rattling of machine gun fire, sharp and loud enough to pierce the din of the turbines. Cry flinches at the sound, almost tripping over his feet as he tries to drag Pewdie up the stairs. Every explosion is accompanied by a flash of white-red light that throws the chamber into radiance and darkness, and it isn't long before he smells the burnt acrid whiff of smoke. Once they are halfway up, the crackling noises putter into a stop after less than ten seconds. Cry glances down, catching a glimpse of the lower level below them and sees a cloud of smoke concealing the remains of their burnt-out firecrackers. Then the identical yellow doors where he had planted their explosives suddenly burst open and unfamiliar voices yell at each other from over the din of machines.

"Shit! We've been caught!"

"What the hell is this smoke?"

"Where the fuck is Hugh? Hughie? Hugh, you there?"

"Dammit. We shouldn't have let him watch our backs out here on his own. God, let him not be dead."

Startled that there are suddenly people in the chamber, Cry yanks Pewdie to a stop and pulls him down and out of sight. He then carefully peers through the staircase railings and sees the silhouettes of men amidst the smoke, slowly spilling out of the yellow doors. He counts up to five of them. One pair breaks out of the group to inspect the area while a man hunkers down to study the firecracker remains which had left scorch marks on the floor.

A second man comes to examine the marks too, scuffling it with his shoe. "Looks like it came from a firework," he says to his companion in a voice loud enough to be heard over the turbines, loud enough to reach their ears. "Or something close to that anyway. Somebody else knows we're here. They know our plan. They're trying to blow our cover, setting these off and alerting the rest of the camp." The man suddenly lifts his head and looks upwards and immediately, Cry shrinks back, fearful for a second that he might have been seen. His mind throws up the questions: _Who_ are _these guys?_ and _What does he mean by "somebody else knows we're here"? Surely, he can't mean us?_

"I found Hugh!" comes a hollered announcement. "Come over here and help me out! He's breathing, he's still breathing. Gosh, lucky bastard. Somebody knocked him out cold." Squinting, Cry makes out the pair of men surrounding the unconscious body of Pewdie's assailant. Another piece of the puzzle slots into place – _These people are not part of this camp. They're not supposed to be here. They snuck in just like us. Fucking hell, they're bandits._ And this certainly explains why the man upstairs is dead.

"Hugh must've seen whoever set off those explosives," someone from the group proposes as they all gather around the unconscious body and try to lift him up. 

"Then be alert," someone else says sternly. "We got a couple of lurkers. They might still be around. They might even be here right now."

Oh no. Cry's eyes meet Pewdie's horrified ones, and he realises what it is they had brought upon themselves. These people are aware of their presence. He and Pewdie have to get out of here now. Cry wildly motions towards the platform and Pewdie nods, understanding his intentions. He reaches out and takes Cry's forearm and together, with practiced movements, they creep up the rest of the stairs, mindful of every step they take.

The men's voices continue to resonate up to them, a continuous reminder that at any time, someone is bound to glance up and notice something suspicious. But Cry is thankful for the noise of the turbines for once as they help mask the sound of their movements. Once they reach their destination, Cry eases the door open just enough to push Pewdie and himself through. The moment it shuts, cutting off the din of machines, they scramble through the room in a frenzy, passing the lantern and the dead man still sitting slumped in his chair and not sparing a glance at either, only focused on reaching the exit at the other end of the room. Pewdie gets there first, pulling it open a few inches before suddenly shutting it closed again.

"What are you _doing_?" Cry hisses, staring at the other man in bewilderment.

"There are _people_ out there, on the bridge," Pewdie answers and Cry's stomach plummets. A sense of dread quickly mounts in his chest and he's terrified at the notion that he and Pewdie are trapped here and that someone is about to come their way from two different doorways and find them. There is no way forward and no way back for now. Eventually, Cry's instincts push him towards a last resort.

"Quick, hide!" he squeaks, sweeping his eyes across the area, trying to find a potential nook to disappear in. But there is nothing. No locker compartments to hide in, no bedframes to crawl under, no vents to climb into. Just consoles and control panels. Even if they do try to squeeze into the tight spaces between these devices, there is still a chance of them being discovered because their hiding place is too exposed in the open. There is no place to hide.

"The light. The light," Pewdie seems to have difficulty speaking, pointing urgently at the lantern glowing on top of the console. Cry blinks stupidly at him, unable to understand what he is trying to say. The other man swallows, taking in a mouthful of air before trying again: "Turn off the light. They won't see us. Can't find us in the dark. Go, go, go!"

Cry flies from Pewdie's side to the console, snatching up the lantern and taking care not to touch the dead man sitting nearby. Then he and Pewdie pick an area furthest away from both doors and squeeze into a space between two consoles, crouching and trying to be as small as possible. Cry fumbles with the lantern in his clammy hands, tracing it with his fingers, searching for the switch.

The door to the turbine chamber swings open.

Beside him, Pewdie takes in a sharp intake of breath in alarm and Cry finally feels the switch and quickly shuts off the light. Darkness fills the room and slowly, Cry discerns the sound of the rain hitting the rooftop, his short, ragged breathing; feels his pounding heart quickening, Pewdie's side pressed against his.

"Who's there?" a rough voice calls out, making them both wince when they realise that the men must have seen the lantern switching off. Footsteps scrape against the floor. "Guys! I think there's someone here." Oh fuck.

"It's so fuckin' dark," says another voice. "Hey. Somebody get us a flashlight." Oh. _Fuck._

Cry curls into himself and he's just about to reach for Pewdie's arm when a beam of light flickers into life, shining onto the ground a couple of feet in front of them. The nearness of it quickly amplifies his sense of panic and Cry squeezes his eyes shut, shrinking even more into the wall and holding his breath as hard as he can. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. They're going to _see_ us.

The sound of a swinging door followed by the pounding rain and rustling wind makes him open his eyes. The door leading out to the bridge had opened and someone is walking into the room, calling out, "Bill, you there? We saw some flashing lights through the window. Was that you–?" Instantly, the person holding the flashlight jerks it up in surprise, shining the beam onto the newcomer. Cry notices the latter wearing a hard hat that is identical to the dead man's. The flashlight shining on him stops his next words. Something crosses his face then – alarm - and then his hand jumps to the back of his pants, reaching for a weapon.

An ear-splitting _bang_ suddenly echoes around the room, so loud and explosive it is in this enclosed space that it makes Cry and Pewdie jump, makes Cry cover his ringing ears with his hands and stifle a whimper in his throat. He manages to catch a glimpse of the newcomer's body, now with a bullet hole on his forehead, collapsing onto the ground. His vision spins a little and he squeezes his eyes shut again, unable to believe what had happened – oh my god, a man was killed in front of me, fuck, fuck, fuck – and his mind recalls to him the cold, metallic touch of a gun against his own head. Cry winces at the memory, fighting to keep his breathing in check. His heart is thudding almost painfully against his chest and he can't stop feeling scared, can't stop recalling the moment the bullet hole appeared on the guy's head and oh god oh god oh fuck, no, no, we're going to be next they'll shoot us dead we're going to be next please don't find us please don't find us–

"Ow...ears!" someone moans and like before, Cry's ears hurt, throbbing from the aftermath of the blast. The sounds and voices he hears go in and out of focus amidst the high-pitched ringing. "...made me break...flashlight!"

"Carl...idiot," berates someone else. "... _had_ to shoot a man...blow our eardrums...all while...fuckin' door is wide open...everybody...fuckin' _hear_ us!"

"Ah, shit," comes the grunted response, presumably from the man who had fired his gun. "Sorry everyone."

The high-pitched _ping_ in his ears eventually subsides to the point in which Cry thinks his hearing has returned. He blinks at the scene through watery eyes. The first thing he notices is that the door to the bridge is still left open. They can hear the falling rain outside, quieter now that the thunder and lightning seems to have passed, and something new has joined the discord outside – distant, yelling voices. Someone in the room curses.

"Shit. They know we're here. Killian. Killian, man. What should we do?"

"We get out," it is the voice of the man who had glanced up the stairs and had almost seen Cry. "Shoot our way out. We might not have all that we need but we can't stay here now that they've found us. We cross that bridge and meet up with the others, try to blast our way out of that back gate. Carl, you carry Hugh. I'll cover all of you. No one dies tonight. We all get out of here alive, a'ight? Also, if any of you happen to see Silva out there, remember – that bastard is mine."

A sudden burst of gunfire interrupts the talk. Cry flinches in response, sensing scuffled, hurried movements as the men yell and duck down from whoever is shooting at their building. Suddenly, the atmosphere changes: a sense of urgency settles in the room. He hears the increase in activity, the short and curt instructions exchanged between the group members, a grunt as someone is hoisted onto a back, the familiar clicks of firearms being reloaded. Then Killian, the man who had been giving orders, darts to the open door. The light from outside throws his sharp features into relief for a brief second before he brings up his gun – making Cry block his ears just in time – and fires.

All hell breaks loose after that.

Gunfire punctuates the rain, sharp and cracking like lightning striking the earth. Voices yell and curse into the night. Someone cries out in pain and stumbles, clutching a wounded arm. Killian hollers at the others, tossing a spent magazine and slotting a new one in place. Then more continuous explosive shots, the sound deafening and painful in his ears, making Cry recoil into himself, every stuttered discharge quickly shattering his composure. He shuts his eyes, burying his head into his knees, trying to block out the noise, trying to block out everything, trying not to scream. Too many things are happening at once. Too much noise. He wants out. He wants everything to stop.

The next time he lifts his head, they are alone in the room. The gunfight had moved outside, the exchange of bullets and curses piercing the monotony of the rain. Realising this, Cry sits, stunned for a moment, staring at the door to the bridge before instinct compels him to squeeze out of the space they're in and scramble up to his feet. He almost collapses back down when pins and needles shoot up his legs. Bracing a hand against the wall for support, Cry breathes heavily, trying to get his legs to steady, casts another nervous look at the door before eventually realising that Pewdie hadn't moved from his spot at all.

"Pewds?" Cry calls shakily and crouches back down, reaching out for him in the half-light. His fingers come into contact with Pewdie's still damp hair. Squinting, he manages to make out the other man's silhouette. He had curled up into a defensive ball, his head buried into his arms like Cry had done, his body stiff with tension. "Pewds," Cry shakes him by the shoulder. A splutter of bullets tearing through the rain outside makes him glance at the door worriedly. His shaking grows urgent, impatient. "Come _on_ , man. Pewds, come _on,_ " he says again, his words tumbling over each other. "This is our chance, Pewds. We have to get out of here. We have to go. We can't stay here. Please, let's go. Let's get out of here _._ "

He's thankful when Pewdie shifts out of stillness and lifts his head from his arms. Cry can't see his face very well but Pewdie's words tell him what he needs to know: "I can't do this, Cry," he rasps out. "I'm so tired of this. This whole fucking thing is crazy."

"Pewds," Cry says, bewildered by the other man's words, at the striking familiarity in them. Cry had said something similar like this back in the tunnel as well. He forces himself to keep it together, to be the level-headed for now. "Pewds, it's gonna be okay," he reassures.

"There are people _out_ there, Cry. With _guns_ ," Pewdie tries to explain, his voice growing smaller and raspier after every word. Cry can hear him trying to swallow again and it's worrying, knowing that something might be wrong with his throat from the way he is struggling to speak. "We can handle zombies," Pewdie continues. "I don't know if we can do the same thing with people. They're a lot more dangerous. They're so unpredictable."

"I know," Cry says understandingly. "I know, man. We're both tired and this is something totally out of our league. But right now. Right now, we have to get out of here. Okay? We have to get out of here."

After a while, Pewdie agrees, "Okay," and Cry helps him up to his feet, supports him as Pewdie shakes the pins and needles out of his legs. They stand there for a while, mustering as much courage as they can to face the next challenge – escape.

"Where do we go?" Cry mumbles, thinking hard, trying to weigh possibilities. "How do we get out of here? Where the fuck is the exit?" Also, fuck Doc and the others for not telling us shit, he adds bitterly to himself.

"The gate," Pewdie suggests, surprising Cry with how sober he sounds.

"The gate?"

"The back gate," Pewdie elaborates. "The one we passed by, remember? Chained shut? Those guys mentioned something about blasting it open and escaping. We could do the same. Follow them out."

Cry casts an uneasy look at the door to the bridge, where the noises of gunshots, shouting and rain mix together in a cacophony of chaos. "You want us to go out _there_?"

"Can you think of another way out?"

He can't. Cry doesn't know the layout of this place and he certainly doesn't want to spend more time wandering around in search of an alternative exit. Someone is bound to find them the longer they stay here.

"It's hell out there," Cry points out another dilemma. "How are we going to cross that bridge without getting shot?" And for the record, going out there is nothing short of suicide.

Pewdie starts pacing around in circles on the spot, his face contorted in concentration. Cry watches him while he himself tries to think but the other man's distracting gestures – Pewdie running his hands through his hair in frustration, the worrying way he breathes, squeezing his eyes shut like he is fighting off a headache – is disrupting his ability to plan. He turns away and his gaze lands on the floor, his mind wandering off to thoughts of what lie under it. Something dawns on him then and it almost feels like a light bulb had just gone off above his head.

"There are stairs on the bridge," he tells Pewdie, who thankfully stops his pacing. "They go under, right? Under the bridge? So we go down. Cross it from there. Avoid the gunfight altogether."

"And then?"

"We climb back up, get to that other building. Back out the way we came. Use that gate to get the fuck out of here."

After a while, Pewdie comments solemnly, "It sounds so simple."

Cry almost laughs. "If only it is."

"We have no other choice," Pewdie lets out a resigned sigh but doesn't object to the suggestion.

Cry nods, "Let's do this."

They approach the door together, peering out and catching a glimpse of the scene. The downpour continues, making visibility a little difficult. The bridge itself is littered with bodies, many wearing hard hats and lying in pools of blood made diluted by the rain. The remaining survivors crouch behind any kind of cover, including one of the bulbous machines – another type of turbine, Cry deduces – pausing to fiddle with their firearms before whipping out of cover to deliver a handful of shots to the other side of the bridge. A few seconds later, gunfire returns from the opposite end. It's a continuous cycle that goes on and on until one or both parties become exhausted of men or ammunition.

They can see the nearest staircase leading to the underside of the bridge about twenty metres away from them but they would have to get to one of those turbines and then double back to reach it. This only means that they have to step into the battlefield to gain access to it. How can they accomplish that without getting caught in that crossfire? What is it that Cry can remember about guns or gunfights in general?

Almost on cue, Vegas's words recall back to him: _If you happen to get caught in any kind of gunfight, for fuck's sake, keep your head down at all times._

It is a common piece of advice, something that is so applicable to both real and videogame realities that it becomes so easy to disregard it. But right now, Cry can feel the importance of that rule and how much he needs to rely on it to get through this in one piece. He pulls Pewdie down, muttering urgently into his ear.

"See that crate over there?" he points to one on the bridge, the soaked wood flaking off and the sides dotted with bullets. "We aim for it and go when the time is right."

"We should go to that turbine next though," Pewdie recommends after him. "That crate's not a good cover. Bullets can shoot through that. We should aim for something more solid. Like that turbine. Then, we go for the stairs."

"Alright. Don't forget to keep your head down," Cry recites Vegas's piece of advice. "When nobody's shooting, that's when we go, okay?" He then peers out again to estimate the distance it takes to reach from crate to turbine and from turbine to stairs. He readies himself, one hand gripping Pewdie's forearm, takes a deep breath, waits.

Waiting for the right moment to move is torturous. The sound of gunfire piercing through the rainy night is already dreadful enough, doing nothing but increase his agitation. He feels his mouth going dry and his stomach churning unpleasantly after every excruciating second, almost to the point of making him feel sick. His heart is racing in his chest again, feeling as if it is about to burst and it's awful, this anticipation. It is like waiting for the moment to die. Cry almost wants to back out of this plan. The longer they wait there, the more his thoughts start to question their subsequent actions: Is it really worth going out there? What if you take one step and that's it, a bullet finds you? How much will it hurt if you happened to get shot? How long do you think you can last out there without dying? If Pewdie gets shot, will you stay to help or leave him instead?

And then, that moment arrives, so unexpectedly that Cry almost misses it. He only realises that silence had descended for more than three seconds when Pewdie viciously tugs him forward, signalling him to move. His mind clicks into place and his body instantly goes into motion. Rain pelts onto his back and neck as he runs, crouching and almost blind, towards the direction of the crate. He ignores the scene around him completely as his mind screams: _quick, quick, quick before they start shooting,_ and _you're not going to make it, they'll see you, they're gonna shoot you, you're gonna die._ Before he knows it, he feels the solid surface of the crate under his hands. The wet, wooden texture of the box under his fingertips relieves him for a moment. He lets out a deep sigh. They had made the first stage.

The gunfire resumes. More yelling and cursing. He and Pewdie duck, leaning into each other, trying to be as small as they can, feeling vulnerable out here in the rain. Are bullets flying over their heads right now? How many of the bandit group have already fought their way to the other side? Can he and Pewdie catch up to them on time? And where the hell are Delta and the others? Are they nearby? Will they keep their promise to wait for them at their rendezvous point, that is, if they survive this?

Another unexpected lapse of silence occurs and Cry and Pewdie take the opportunity to dash towards the bulky structure of the turbine. Cry doesn't spare a glance at the scene to view the progress of the fight. He and Pewdie are so close to the staircase. Just one more sprint and they will make it to safety for now.

And then the electric lights of the bridge flicker once and die down completely, plunging everything into darkness. At first, Cry thinks he might have gone blind all of a sudden or someone had crept up to them without their knowledge and thrown a bag over his head. But when he hears the shooting parties yell in surprise and alarm at the sudden blackout, he realises that the electricity of the entire power plant had been shut down.

No one can see each other. This is it. Another opportunity.

"Pewds!" Cry whispers urgently and tugs Pewdie towards the direction of the staircase. He makes sure he keeps his head down and his hand stretched outwards. It's crazy, trying to feel their way through the dark and in the rain, but it is better than staying longer in this crossfire. Besides, it's not completely pitch black out here. Cry can still see faint silhouettes and the falling rain around them. He puts every bit of concentration on his fingers, his hands, his hearing - he feels the cold, smooth surface of the floor panels, hears someone in the distance shouting an order to turn on the lights, smells the scent of rain and earth. He creeps forward, slowly, reaching out, until his knuckles brush against something thin and vertical. He feels railings, steps. The staircase. Yes, yes, fuck yes, he thinks.

Carefully, he and Pewdie feel their way down the stairs, putting some distance between themselves and the danger above. When they reach the bottom, it's even darker down here and Cry can hear the river waters smacking against the sides of the walkway. He squints into the blackness before him, trying to discern something, anything before him.

There is a shuffling of fabric, followed by the sound of a zipper. Then, something is unwrapped, something _cracks_ and Pewdie suddenly manifests beside him, a red glow stick in his hand.

"Does this help?" he asks, waving the source of light about.

"What happened to your other one?" Cry counters instead, staring at the glow stick. He thought Pewdie had stashed it into his bag like Cry had done when they climbed out of the manhole.

"Threw it away," Pewdie reveals.

"Why did you?"

"I didn't need it anymore. And why are you asking? Is it important?"

Cry stops himself from answering back because, truth be told, he doesn't have a response to that. The only reason he brought this up was because of Tesla's instructions. He'd been following them up until now, even the part where she'd told him not to drop anything they have. He isn't sure why he'd adhered to those instructions down to the last detail. He only feels that any kind of given advice can help them in their situation.

In the end though, he waves Pewdie's query away. "Let's make this quick. While the power's out," he suggests.

They scurry across the walkway, thankful for the meagre light of the glow stick illuminating even a small portion of their path. Eventually, they come across a column of concrete beside their pathway that is rumbling with activity inside. Glancing up, Cry sees that the columns are built right under the twin turbines, perhaps concealing the rest of the engines' inner structures. On the bridge itself, he can hear the murmur of men's voices overhead but it is hard to make out anything comprehensible. There hasn't been a gunshot since the lights went out. Perhaps the two parties have mutually decided not to risk wasting bullets on an unseen enemy.

Eventually, Cry realises a faulty in their plan of escape when he and Pewdie find their pathway blocked by a stack of broken furniture including a couple of dented filing cabinets. He stares at this mess of items in bewilderment, unable to believe this. They're so close to freedom and yet another obstacle pops out of nowhere to thwart their escape. Fucking perfect.

"Shit," Cry hisses through his teeth while Pewdie examines the structure with his glow stick. This blockade looks far too unstable to climb over and even the process of disassembling it seems too complicated and time-consuming. There must be another way through to get to the other side.

"Maybe we should go back," Cry suggests, glancing at the path they had come from. "Maybe we'll try crossing the bridge from above now that it's dark and no one can see us."

"I have a glow stick," Pewdie reminds him sternly. "I'll be like a sitting duck for them to shoot at. And anyway, without it, we won't be able to see where we're going."

"Then what can we _do_?" Cry asks desperately, feeling the sense of hopelessness rear its ugly head in his mind. "If you have a plan, why don't you share it with the rest of the class?"

"You certainly have a way with words when you're on edge like this," Pewdie murmurs almost playfully at him and – really, this is becoming typical of Pewds, always picking an inappropriate time to make jokes like this, even after he'd gone through a traumatic event. Nonetheless, the comment does shake Cry back to his senses a little. He turns to the concrete columns, trying to imagine the bigger picture. He wonders how this bridge had been built. What will they find if they walk around this corner? Is there a ledge on the side of these columns, however narrow it is, that they can use to get to the other side?

Wordlessly, he approaches that corner and is relieved to find that beyond the safety railings of the underside of the bridge, there _is_ a ledge stretching across the flowing waters. It's too dark to see whether it reaches the other side but it is their best bet so far. The ledge itself isn't too narrow to walk on and as long as they maintain their balance and edge along it carefully, they should be able to make it to the other side. At least, that's what he hopes.

He turns to Pewdie.

"Are you sure about this?" Pewdie asks him automatically, having guessed his intentions. The other man then waves his glow stick at the ledge. "This isn't like in the movies, you know. Or in videogames."

"We'll be fine," Cry reassures him, even though he isn't completely confident about this plan himself. Then again, what other choice do they have? "It's just like crossing those rooftops again. Remember that? Just watch your step and keep moving, one step at a time. Don't look down or anywhere else. And anyway, I'll be right beside you this time."

When Pewdie continues to look hesitant, he reaches out and touches the other man's shoulder. "We can do this, Pewds."

Pewdie's miniscule nod is enough for him to proceed and Cry makes the decision to go first. He takes Pewdie's glow stick in his hand – needing it more than the latter if he is to navigate in the dark – and climbs over the safety railings and carefully steps onto the wet ledge, positioning his body so that his bag and shovel press against the concrete and he is facing the river flowing downstream. It's uncomfortable, having the shapes of both bag and shovel digging into his back while he travels along the ledge but thankfully, they don't disturb his sense of balance. In the darkness and the rain, he can't see the waters even with the light of the glow stick but he can sense the river's power nonetheless, hears its continuous flow as its waters surge away from the bridge and vanish into the night.

Pewdie climbs onto the ledge after him, his movements a lot more cautious and tentative in nature. He is trying his best not to look at the water as he adjusts his feet in position. He leans his head back onto the concrete, a challenge since his bag is also cushioning his back, lets the rain pelt onto his face and takes a couple of deep, uneven breaths. "Okay," he tells Cry, his voice shaking a little and it seems to be the only word he can manage for now. "Okay," he says again, this time coaxing him to move.

Cry begins to edge along the ledge, shuffling sideways, one foot after the other, and firmly keeps his back against the wall at all times. He can hear the blade of his shovel scraping against the concrete somewhere above his left ear. The hand holding the glow stick is pointed downwards to illuminate the rest of the ledge after every step. He can hear Pewdie shuffling beside him at a much slower pace and makes sure to pause for a bit to let the other man catch up. Soon enough though, Cry begins to establish a rhythm as he inches closer and closer to their destination. He feels a tingle of excitement build in his chest at the hope that they're going to make it. Just a little bit more and they would reach the staircase leading back up. Almost there.

Suddenly, suddenly, the lights on the bridge blaze into life. The brightness stuns him for a moment and the dark silhouettes which his eyes had been adjusted to is thrown into luminosity. At once, he sees the churning river waters before him, driven wild and aggressive by the rainfall and lapping at the brink of the ledge near his feet. He is suddenly conscious of his own position, of how precarious it is that he is standing on a narrow slab of wet concrete facing a swift flowing river. His treacherous heart begins hammering against his chest. He knows he is in danger of going into panic again.

The revival of the gunfight above startles him. After such a long stretch of silence, the sound of gunfire, explosive and deafening to his ears, reverberates the very air around them, shattering the peace and quiet of the night. It startles him to the point that his body flinches and moves to defend itself, to curl up into a ball and attempt to block out the threat. A mistake.

The narrow concrete slides underneath his feet. His vision tilts. Light, shadows, a swirl of colour. Pewdie's shocked face as he goes under.

Then, a jolt of cold wetness. His whole world is suddenly filled with water, water up his nose, in his ears, in his mouth, in his eyes. His vision blurs, blends, light and shadow merging and swirling, disordered and chaotic. Noises muffled in his ears, sounding far away, and a pressure on his chest – the bone-crushing water – pushing him down, down, down. Panicking, he thrashes and the river thrashes back, sucking him deeper into its embrace and refusing to let go. He tries yelling for help only to end up swallowing a mouthful of water instead. His nose and throat burn unpleasantly. He splutters. Gasps.

Helplessly, he watches the bridge lights fall further and further away from his reach as the river drags him along its current, pulling him straight into the waiting darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Oh my god. What. Just. Happened.]
> 
> Some notes, as usual. This month? Let's make a list.
> 
> 1\. Pewdie's reaction to thunder in this chapter: It might not seem like it but his reaction here is a subtle shout-out to Pewdie mentioning he was "actually scared of thunder" in one of his videos.
> 
> 2\. The layout of this hydro-power plant is heavily (if not entirely) based off the one in 'The Last of Us'. Why? I went to do my research, I read up on how hydro-power works, which kinds of turbines were used, how the actual plant looks like. In the end, I disregarded all that stuff and went for the shortcut - re-watching the hydro-power segments in both Pewds and Cry's TLOU playthroughs and adopting that instead, even down to the camp members wearing hard hats for easy identification. Sorry. Also, trying to describe something which you don't know how to describe is a bitch. I'm done with hydro-power. 
> 
> 3\. Some of the strangling aftereffects include difficulty in breathing/swallowing, raspy/hoarse/loss of voice, thumbnail-print bruises, pinpoint red spots on skin/eyes, scratches on skin which are often self-inflicted. Victims of strangulation usually lose consciousness in less than ten seconds and they wake up not knowing what had happened to them. There are other aftereffects, of course, and - gosh, I feel pretty bad for making Pewds go through this. Strangling, in general, is a really awful and traumatising experience. 
> 
> 4\. Cry's relieved gasp of "oh thank god... ohhh, thank god", is pretty much inspired (and taken directly) from the same reaction in his The Walking Dead Season 2 video, specifically after Clementine got shot and had that dream sequence and then woke up in a car with Kenny, Jane and Alvin. I heard Cry gasping those words, thought it was such an effective reaction, and I instantly wanted it in this chapter. 
> 
> 5\. Hands up who got the Outlast game references.
> 
> 6\. Also, your thoughts on the bandit group? I planned on making them the classic bad guys at first - that is, brutal, foul-mouthed, violent and generally unpleasant - but then I added some names (Killian, Carl, Hugh) and some dialogue that gives us a glimpse of what kind of people they are, and then I think - wait a second. They don't really sound classic bad guys anymore. I almost admire Killian for reassuring the others, "I'll cover all of you...We all get out of here alive, a'ight?" and the rest of the men for fussing over Hugh's (Pewds's assailant) well-being. On another note, a familiar name returns: Silva. Do recall Alistair and Jim mentioning the name. From what Killian says here, we can speculate that this camp belongs to the man, Silva.
> 
> 7\. I had to rewrite the gunfight scene a couple of times. It started a lot more detailed with Cry watching the movements, the transitions and the general progress of the fight. Then, I cut out bits because it was too long. Then, I rewrote it again because this was in Cry's perspective and that if I were him, I wouldn't be watching a gunfight at all. I'd be hiding and freaking out and wanting everything to stop. There's actually been a lot of short sentences focusing on emotions/sensations in this chapter - not just for the gunfight scene but also when Cry falls into the river and is swept away.
> 
> Phew. So I'd covered most of the Raid/Op scene and have a bit more to go before I wrap this all up. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you did, hurrah! It would at least put my mind at rest a little after spending about a week non-stop on this. 
> 
> As usual, feedback - kudos, comments, reviews, etc. - is always appreciated so do let me know what you think. Thanks for reading, guys, and see you in the next chapter!


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi.
> 
> this monster chapter is dedicated to the lovely artists who drew fanart for this beast of a story, namely Chameishida, doodlepie, thedorkisatwork, StryderMel and kyuu333. 
> 
> here's to you, lovelies.
> 
> also, here's to reaching the 200,000 word mark. oh my.

**19.**

Cry was gone.

But how can he be _gone_? He was here a second ago, sidling along the ledge with him, clutching their only source of light. When the bridge lights came back on, when the world clamoured back into life in an explosive emission of bullets above them, Pewdie had shrunk back against the wall in alarm, freezing on the spot like a deer in headlights. He hadn't seen what happened next nor had he understood why it happened. One second, he was staring straight at the swift-flowing river before him. Then the next, he sees a movement in the corner of his eye – Cry slipping off the ledge, a splash following after, a silhouette streaking through the water, and then – Cry was gone, snatched away by the night.

The first thing that comes to him as he stands there, still frozen in shock despite the gunfight taking place above him is – _I have to go after him_. _I have to go after him._ But his body refuses to move. It is instinctively telling him that the very intention isn't possible, that throwing himself into the river will amount to nothing. The current is far too strong to swim in. It would be a struggle to even keep himself afloat. He would likely exhaust himself first and end up drowning in the churning waters before he can ever reach Cry.

The gunfire above him sounds like thunder piercing the rainy night, each shot rattling Pewdie's already shaky composure. He can feel his panic mounting in his chest like a tightly pulled string threatening to snap. His throat aches with every ragged, heaving intake of breath. For once, he realises that he is truly alone at this crossroads, clinging for dear life on a narrow slab of concrete and only inches away from being sucked into the surge of deadly waters near his feet.

From somewhere nearby, a voice calls out of the chaotic mix of bullets and rain, "Pewdie! Pewdie!"

Pewdie turns his head to the side. Amidst the gloom of the underside of the bridge, he makes out a person by the end of the ledge. Vegas. Vegas? What was she doing here? How did she get here?

"Pewdie!" Vegas calls again. She is staring at him in alarm while holding out a cautious hand. "Hang on, alright? It's gonna be okay." Pewdie stares blankly at her. For some reason, his mind is having trouble registering the fact that she is really there, standing only a couple of metres away. In fact, it is having trouble trying to make sense of anything at the moment.

A strangled yell from above draws their attention and Pewdie catches a glimpse of a flailing body dropping from the bridge and splashing into the water before him. Vegas startles and curses, sensing the urgency of the situation, and goes to gesture wildly at him. "Just come towards me. Come on, Pewdie. Come towards me. One step at a time. Go slowly. Can you do that? Come towards me right now."

Vegas's encouragement does the trick. Somehow, Pewdie wills himself to move, peeling off the concrete wall he had stuck himself against, and begins to shuffle sideways. He thinks he is getting his bearings as he hears Vegas's voice grow louder in his right ear, an indication that he is coming closer towards his destination. He almost startles when a pair of hands grab onto his arm and haul him away from the ledge. For a second, he is relieved to be on solid ground once again.

"Where's Cry?" Vegas asks, and the name makes Pewdie freeze. Now that he is out of immediate danger, the reality of the situation hits him hard like a punch in the gut. Cry. Cry. Oh god. _Cry_. Cry was gone. Cry was lost. Pewdie is alone. No. No. No. How did this happen? _Why_ had this happened? He has to get to Cry. He has to find him. He isn't even aware that his feet are moving towards the water until Vegas suddenly pulls him back.

"Pewdie, where's _Cry?_ " comes Vegas's firm voice but it sounds oddly muffled, as if Pewdie is hearing her words underwater. Even the inflammation on his neck and throat seems to have dulled a little. Even the bullets and shouting flying overhead have become distant noises in the background.

"Cry," Pewdie gasps out but cannot get himself to say anything more. He carries on staring at the river, remembering the moment when Cry is sucked into the water and carried away by the current. Gone. Lost. Pewdie is alone. Fuck. Fuck. Why is the world spinning? Why does he suddenly feel sick?

Vegas goes horribly quiet for a moment, as if she had finally figured out Cry's fate, and when she speaks again, her voice is low and serious. "Pewdie. We can't stay here. We have to go. Delta turned off the lights just now to give us some time to escape but someone turned them back on too soon. We can't let anyone see us right now. We need to go while the fight upstairs is still going on."

But Pewdie doesn't move. It is as if he is rooted on the spot, as if his very bones feel too stiff in his skin to stir. He can't leave. He doesn't want to. This is the last place he had seen Cry. Cry was _here_ a few minutes ago. He was here beside him, leading them to safety like he always did. He was here with him when the lights came back on. And then he was gone, and Pewdie is left hanging in a void, feeling as if he had been knocked out of alignment.

("Pewdie, _listen_ to me–" Vegas's voice is far away. "Hey!")

His vision narrows. He feels hot and so out of it. He feels ready to throw up. His throat hurts when he swallows, when he breathes. And then he realises why he is feeling this way – because he is absolutely terrified about coming into terms with this reality now that it has happened. He is terrified to realise that he had failed to protect Cry. That Cry is lost to him. That everything is over. He wants to collapse. He wants to break. He wants to pass out. He wants to cry–

Something strikes him hard across the face with such force that he stumbles backwards and grabs hold of his stinging, throbbing cheek – the same one that had been inflicted with a punch earlier on. The world suddenly jolts itself back into place and Pewdie realises that he is standing under a bridge, with the roar of the river sounding loud in his ears, and there is Vegas standing in front of him, shaking the hand she had used to slap him with. She is glaring at him in return to what he imagines is his expression of complete shock. He can't believe she had actually slapped him in the face.

"Snap out of it!" Vegas commands. "There's nothing we can do about Cry right now. There's no time to lose. We have to get out of here _now_."

Her answer seems to rouse some of Pewdie's anger into life. How can she say something like that? How can she put priority over their escape when Cry's fall into the river is the more important problem to think about? His anger must have been visible on his face because Vegas takes a defensive step back. Her expression, however, continues to maintain its sternness.

"I'm sorry about Cry," she begins to say in a carefully measured tone. "Believe me, I wish this hadn't happened. But just know that the reason I'm here is because I promised Delta that I'd get you both out of here alive. But if Cry was already gone by the time I got here, the least I can do right now is to save you."

"You don't understand," Pewdie grits out weakly and has to swallow down the overwhelming feeling of grief at the memory of Cry vanishing into the water. "You don't – you don't understand. Cry is– Cry is–"

"I _do,_ " Vegas cuts in. "I _do_ understand. Which is why we can't do anything about it while we're here. We can't do anything about Cry. Do you understand that? We have to leave this place first. Only _then_ can we go look for him, okay? Do you think you can finally get your shit together, or do I have to slap you again?"

Pewdie does not want anything else to hit his stinging cheek so he bobs his head in compliance to her demand. She turns, ready to lead him elsewhere. "I almost believed you boys really had nerves of steel," she remarks from over her shoulder. "But I see all of that crumbles the moment one of you gets kicked out of the picture."

Pewdie doesn't say anything to that. His silence, though, must have meant something because Vegas adds in an almost apologetic tone, "I ain't trying anything with you. I'm only saying that I can relate. Just know this – it doesn't get easier every time this happens. The worst thing that can come out of it is you breaking at the wrong place and the wrong time. Which is why you need to try hard to keep yourself together or you're gonna end up doing something awfully stupid. Now, let's go."

"Do you think...?" Pewdie starts quietly but pulls the rest of his words back on the last minute when he is almost afraid of the spark of hope that springs up at the thought of his incomplete question.

Unfortunately, Vegas had heard him. "Do I think what?"

Pewdie's voice comes out small and shaky. "Do you think there's a chance that Cry's still alive?" Oh god, is there a chance he might make it through? Is there a chance he might swim to safety? Is there a chance that Pewdie might find him?

Vegas glances back at him but it is too dark to read her expression. "If it makes you feel any better, Pewdie, I'd probably advise you to keep the faith," she says in a grim tone. "But eventually, you're gonna have to prepare yourself for the worst."

 

Cry is lost, tumbling through the wet darkness.

The river is ruthless, a powerful beast that rages without stopping, sweeping everything along its path in a relentless race downriver. Cry fights against its current, his mind screaming at him to _swim, swim, keep your head afloat, don't let the river drown you, don't let it win._ He desperately struggles to regain some sense of balance and control of himself but the river continues to win against him every time. His backpack and shovel are a dead weight on his back, a stone making him sink. He wants to let them go but he can't find a way to do so. He feels a lot like a ragdoll being aggressively tossed around in the water, thrown left and right, whirling head over heels with the waves. He doesn't understand what is happening. He has lost all sense of his centre of gravity.

Somehow, his head bursts out of the water for a moment. He has a few seconds to grab some mouthfuls of air before the river pulls him back down again into its abyss, toying with him like a cat with a mouse. Eventually, he finds himself floating on his back and with feet-first at the mercy of the current. His strength has disappeared, sapped out of his muscles and leaving him limp and boneless in the water. When he goes under again, he opens his eyes this time. It is almost peaceful down here. A world with no sound. But there is light in this darkness. A red glow illuminating nearby. He realises with a start that Pewdie's glow stick is still clutched tightly in his hand, its bright radiance pushing the blackness away. He can't believe he still has it.

But even with the light, he can feel himself sinking again. He senses the world above falling away from him as Pewdie's glow stick continues to burn red and stay useless in his hand. Icy fear begins to spread all over his body like countless spindly fingers, accompanying the sense of hopelessness descending in his heart. Yet, despite this hopelessness, his fear quickly gives away to acceptance. For a moment, something tranquil and peaceful settles over his mind. For a moment, he comes to accept the thought – _it's over_ – and shuts his eyes.

(Something grabs hold of him. Water running down his face. His body dragging across grass. A weight lifting off his shoulders and back. Silence.)

His throat _burns_. It hurts. He is heaving, coughing up water, and the sensation burns his insides all the way up to his nose. All feeling comes back. His stomach, his chest, his limbs, his throat, his head. Sore. Pounding. Throbbing. Nausea. He throws up, feels it dripping from his open mouth, and keeps doing so until nothing more comes out. He is gasping. Air. Sweet air. His chest aches. It is a struggle to even breathe.

Eventually, he peels his eyes open and finds his whole being utterly exhausted, beaten within an inch or so of his life. There is pain and soreness all over his body and he cannot muster any energy to even lift a finger. Gradually, he begins to register the world around him – feels water droplets dripping off the frames of his glasses, hears the gentle pitter-patter of rain, the rush of the river, the smell of vegetation and earth, the feel of grass underneath his skin. His vision returns to him, blurry edges sharpening a little into focus, and he finds himself staring up at someone's face. It is too dark to see much of their features but he can make out the penetrating stare, the mismatched eyes – one iris being distinctly lighter than the other. One blue and one brown.

"You're alive," comes the Anorak's gravelly voice. He sounds spent and out of breath and very much surprised. "Holy hell. You're still alive."

Cry wants to ask him how and what and whether _he_ had been the one who had saved him from drowning but finds himself too exhausted to speak. Breathing is much more of a priority right now. That, and shivering. His body is shaking uncontrollably from where he lies on the ground.

Fortunately, the Anorak seems to have guessed his intended question. "You're lucky you were holding on to this," he says through his heavy breathing, lifting something in the air for Cry to see. The Anorak is holding up Cry's hand, which, astonishingly enough, is still clutching the red glow stick for dear life. "If you didn't have this on you, I wouldn't have seen you and dragged you out of the water," the Anorak then finishes. Cry casts a quick glance at their only source of light. Pewdie's glow stick had saved him. If Cry hadn't taken it, if he hadn't kept hold of it, if Pewdie hadn't– if Pewdie– wait, wait–

 _Pewdie_ , Cry wants to say and only manages to form the word with his lips. _Pewdie?_ Oh god. Where the fuck was Pewdie?

The Anorak had been watching his mouth carefully. He then answers, "I only pulled you out. There was no one else."

Cry has a brief moment of panic then. Had Pewdie fallen into the river like him too? Or did he remain at the bridge? If it had been the former, then Cry doubts the possibility of Pewdie surviving the river's wrath. Cry must have had a one in a million chance of being spotted in time and then dragged out of the water. Then again, if Pewdie had stayed by the bridge instead, then there was a likelihood that he might still be alive.

Oh god, let him be alive.

He senses the Anorak touching him in certain places as the other man checks him over for injuries. Now that the attention had gone back to him, Cry can't imagine what he might have come away with from his battle against the river, whether it had given him open wounds or broken bones. He can't tell anything at all. Everything just hurts.

After a while, the Anorak draws back from his examination. "I don't think you've broken anything," he informs Cry with a hint of something like disbelief in his voice. "But then again, it _is_ pretty hard to see anything in this light. Speed will have to check you over more thoroughly when we get back." He then reaches down and cradles Cry's face in his hand, forcing their eyes to meet. "Stay with me, okay? You're gonna be alright."

The Anorak lets go and pulls back. Cry can't see what he is doing but hears frantic sounds of activity instead – rustling fabric, something being zipped open, objects being shuffled around. Then, a paper-like crinkling noise of something being unfolded is followed not long after by a series of sharp tearing sounds. Finally, the Anorak returns to his side, tucking what looks like a multi-tool back into his pocket while holding up a thin silvery sheet.

"I'm going to have to take some of your clothes off," he says and for the first time, there is nothing hidden in his words, no cryptic messages or suggestive implications contained within. He seems different in nature when faced with danger in the wilderness because he is serious and business-like for once. "Right now, you're soaking wet," he continues. "You're shivering and losing body heat at the same time from the shock. The river temperature wasn't that cold when I dragged you out but you'll still be at risk of catching hypothermia. Which is why I want you to try and stay awake for as long as possible. Do you understand? If you do, can you try and give me a nod or something?"

Cry musters whatever energy he has left just to tilt his head down an inch and bob it back up. The action tires him out instantly but the message thankfully goes through.

"Alright," says the Anorak and it is impressive how calm yet alert he is. "I'm going to lift you up and get you out of your shirt. Tell me if anything hurts and I'll stop."

He feels the Anorak prying the glow stick out of his stiff fingers so that the undressing becomes easier. The other man's hands then slip under his armpits, pulling the rest of his upper body up into a sitting position. Immediately, Cry slumps forward like a limp noodle, his head resting against the other man's chest and feeling the latter's equally wet clothes pressing against his skin. Then, there are fingers groping around the side of his face, reaching to pull off his glasses, before they appear again by his back, fumbling with the hem of his shirt. Once the wet fabric peels away from Cry's upper body, there is a moment when his head is trapped within his clothes. After some gentle tugging, he then finds himself shivering in the open air, feeling raindrops pattering on his bare shoulders and back.

His eyelids are heavy, threatening to shut. He is so tempted to just close them, to let his face press into the Anorak's chest and fall asleep and he almost does so if the other man hadn't begun speaking to him again, coaxing him to stay awake with the sound of his voice:

"I've got with me a space blanket from the first aid kit," he is saying in that same professionally calm tone. "I went ahead and cut it in two and then made a hole in the middle for your head to go through like a poncho. It'll help reflect your body heat back to you while keeping the moisture off your skin. After that, I'll put your clothes back on to add some layers. Are you ready for this?"

It takes some time and patience to fix on the makeshift poncho and clothes, especially when it is the Anorak who is doing most of the work. After the other man slips Cry's glasses back on his face, he gathers the remainder of the space blanket and carefully wraps it over Cry's wet clothes, popping the hood over the latter's head and then tying the two ends of the sheet together around his waist to secure it in place.

What happens next? Cry wonders absent-mindedly. He can feel some heat blooming and spreading across his torso. The space blanket seems to be doing its job in keeping him warm.

"We have to go and meet up with the others," Cry feels the words vibrating from the chest he is still resting on. "Barbetta isn't too far away. We should catch up with her. I'm going to have to carry you. You're going on my shoulders, fireman's carry, because it's going to take the whole night to get back to the Fire House."

Cry breathes against his neck in an attempt to form the word, _okay_ , and then the Anorak is speaking again, having received the confirmation. "Alright. I'm going to put your bag and shovel back on you and then I'm going to pick you up and carry you."

Somehow, the Anorak calmly but firmly telling him what he is about to do strongly reminds Cry of a combat medic administrating first aid on a wounded soldier on the battlefield. He is vaguely aware of being rolled onto his stomach and feeling his backpack and shovel being strapped onto his back. Then, after a series of complicated positions – Cry being lifted into a standing stance and then turned around, the Anorak bending down, looping an arm in between Cry's legs and wrapping the latter's arm around his neck – Cry's feet leave the ground as the Anorak carefully rises onto his feet. His vision swims for a bit before it steadies and he finds himself sprawled across the Anorak's shoulders, secured in place by the other man's firm grip on his leg and wrist.

"Hold onto that space blanket," the Anorak advises as he peers from over his shoulder at Cry's head which is almost hanging upside down the other man's back. "Warm yourself up. And remember – try to stay awake for as long as you can."

They set off at a slow and steady pace, the Anorak manoeuvring through the darkness with a flashlight in his free hand as they leave the riverside to delve into a copse of trees. The night is quiet during their journey, a sharp contrast to the chaos and confusion from the gunfight on the bridge. The trees they are passing through seem to be situated far apart from each other, allowing the light, wispy rain to reach them. All throughout the walk, Cry battles to keep his eyes open, to focus on holding onto that thread of his consciousness. Unconsciously, the fingers of his free hand curl a little into the folds of the other man's hoodie in an effort to hold on, to keep himself grounded in reality a little longer.

The Anorak doesn't speak as he continues to tread forward, following the path his flashlight lights up for him. Cry can feel the tension in his back muscles and knows that he is alert, carefully watching out for signs of Barbetta and the others. It is only when the other man slows down a little, his muscles becoming noticeably stiffer by the second, that Cry thinks he hears it. The shuffling of footsteps, the crunching of dead leaves under unsteady feet, the sound of inhuman snarling voices. Shit.

Of course, the thunderstorm would have drawn them out. The sound of gunfire would have caught their interest. There is an uncertain pause in the Anorak's steps for a moment, as if the other man is contemplating on where to go, before he shifts to the side and begins to walk towards a different direction. A few minutes later though, he changes his path twice and it is in his tentative steps that Cry knows he isn't walking according to a planned route. It is obvious that the Anorak is trying to avoid the noises. He must have taken a wrong turn though because this time, he falters into a complete stop and seems to be staring at something ahead.

Despite his lack of energy, Cry desperately wants to see what the other man is looking at. Little by little, he uses his free hand to slowly hoist himself up the Anorak's back. His already-spent body protests at the exertion but his effort becomes fruitful once he manages to prop his chin on the curve of the other man's shoulder. It is too dark to see very far even with the beam of the Anorak's flashlight. However, the act of Cry shifting on his back had caught the other man's attention.

"I see them," the Anorak whispers from the corner of his mouth. "They're everywhere. They often get aggressive after a thunderstorm. So much loud noise excites them. Which is why it's safer to avoid them when they get like this." He then shines his flashlight in a slow, wide arch. The Anorak must have very good eyesight to be able to see anything in the far distance and in the cover of darkness because Cry still can't see anything. He _can_ hear the creatures though, hiding somewhere beyond the trees, their ghastly snarls and staggering footsteps giving their presence away.

"Barbetta should be outside these woods," the Anorak continues whispering. "We have a couple of options. We go back out and find another way, we wait until they clear out and make an opening for us, or we just make a run for it. Either way, I won't be able to fight them with just one arm."

There is still one more option that the other man hasn't considered yet. Cry pulls himself closer to what he hopes is the Anorak's ear. _Sneak,_ he breathes. _Sneak past._

The Anorak goes very still at the suggestion. "Sneak past?" he echoes.

 _Don't run,_ Cry gathers what little energy he has left to deliver his broken words. _Keep quiet. Don't panic. Go slow._

"Cry, are you sure about this?"

_They can't see. Can't smell. Can hear. Just keep quiet._

It takes a while before the Anorak makes his decision. When he moves, Cry hears him mutter, "I hope you're right" before he sets off at a much slower pace, this time with his body crouching low. Cry digs his fingers into the Anorak's hoodie and takes a deep breath. The thought of facing zombies when he barely has enough energy to move, much less run from danger, sends his heart racing.

It isn't long until they come face-to-face with the first crowd of zombies. Cry notes that there aren't as many of the creatures as compared to what he and Pewdie experienced back in the tunnel. However, he comes to understand just what the Anorak meant by these zombies being more aggressive after a thunderstorm. Cry had caught a glimpse of this state before when he looked out of the church window some time ago. He recognises it in the way these zombies had gathered and are moving together in a purposeful and predatory intent, with jaws snapping at every sound and limbs outstretched and ready to grab their prey. They look frightening up close, lit into view by the solitary beam of the Anorak's flashlight.

The Anorak hesitates in his steps. Although he doesn't see any trace of fear in the other man's expression yet, Cry can feel his heart pounding away through his hoodie. "There's no opening. They're too close together," the Anorak points out in a whisper. "They seem to be heading this way too. Probably going upriver to get to the power plant."

Cry thinks hard, tries to recall his own experiences of moving through zombies, and feels a deep yearning in his gut. He suddenly wishes Pewdie was here with him. (Fuck. Where _are_ you, Pewds?) He puts the thought aside for the time being and goes to breathe his next piece of advice into the Anorak's ear. _Find opening. Keep distance. Take your time._

"But they're coming this way," the Anorak reminds him in a hiss.

Cry presses his chin onto the shoulder he is resting on in a gesture of emphasis. _Still can't see us. Go slow. Stop when needed._ _Just don't panic._ He is glad when his attempt at words wins in the end because the Anorak concedes and goes to raise his flashlight, waving it around to search for an opening. He eventually finds a gap that is adequate enough to pass through the clusters of zombies. Before he heads towards it though, he takes several deep breaths to prepare himself and then casts a quick glance over his shoulder at Cry. "Ready?" he murmurs and Cry's expectant gaze on him becomes a sufficient answer. They forge ahead.

The moment the Anorak gets within arms-reach distance to the nearest zombie, his body stiffens almost reflexively and he freezes on the spot. Cry can feel his back muscles straining to keep still as the other man's gaze burns into the zombie's disfigured face, as if he is expecting the creature to turn and pounce on him on the next second. It is only when a couple of zombies pass by them, not once sparing the least bit of attention on him and the Anorak, that the latter decides for himself that he is safe for now. He takes one experimental step forward, and then another and another. Gradually, he and Cry start to make some progress, albeit by one painstakingly slow step at a time because the Anorak frequently stops to let the undead creatures brush past him and he would only move when none are near him at all.

It is strange to go through this familiar practice while lying sprawled across someone's shoulders. Despite their progress, Cry cannot help but feel vulnerable of his position, reduced to a spectator instead of an active participant and being unable to do anything except to put his fate and trust on another person who isn't Pewdie. He is worried that the Anorak might not be able to maintain his composure in situations like this due to his inexperience. Cry can't help but dread the moment when the other man might make a mistake and break their spell of invisibility. He clutches the Anorak's hoodie so hard that the grip turns his knuckles bone-white.

They keep on going, slugging through this unstoppable wave of zombies. Inevitably, it becomes so easy to jump into the horrifying assumption that they had been recognised whenever one of the creatures wanders too close to them. There is just something horribly inquisitive contained within their milky-dead eyes, so much so that a head turning towards their direction becomes a possible and immediate cause for alarm.

It is when the Anorak suddenly freezes again, his breath audibly hitching in his throat, when they are halfway to that gap that Cry senses something is wrong. Blinking in the limited light, he tries to see exactly what had induced the other man into this state. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

A zombie had decided to attach itself onto the Anorak's outstretched wrist, the one that is holding onto his flashlight. The creature seems oddly fascinated by the limb, as if it can hear the tiny pulse thumping away in the other man's veins. Cry sees the rotting gums and teeth hovering inches away from the Anorak's bare skin.

Knowing that it is far too dangerous to whisper, he slowly mouths a warning into the petrified Anorak's hoodie, hoping that the other man can feel his words through the fabric – _Don't. Move._

He sees the Anorak's jaw clench in response as he continues to keep very still. They stay that way, clutching onto one another, both staring at the zombie that had latched itself onto them while they wait for it to move. To their horror though, their motionlessness doesn't throw off the creature's notice. Instead, _more_ of its companions have decided to stop by, having sensed the interest of their undead acquaintance towards the Anorak's outstretched wrist.

Ohshitohshitoh _shit_.

Cry sees the Anorak's arm twitch a little, unable to keep it still for much longer. Oh _shit._

 _Don't move,_ Cry quickly warns the other man again. _Don't move don't move don't move._ Oh fuck, his own aching limbs are beginning to shake from the strain of keeping still. His continued efforts to hold himself up and speak is beginning to take its toll on him and what little energy he has left is starting to diminish. He is finding it hard to breathe in this tension that his vision blurs for a second, his stinging eyes reminding him that his body wants to shut itself down and rest. But Cry is needed right now. He has to stay awake. If he loses consciousness at this moment, he will be leaving the Anorak to deal with this on his own and that is something he won't let himself do, regardless of whatever opinion he has of the other man in the past.

But what can he do? What _can_ they do? They are stuck here in this stream of the undead, feeling like a piece of food that is quickly catching the interest of a travelling colony of ants. The only way that they can escape now is if the zombies eventually leave them alone or if an outside source draws them away. At present, a total of five zombies have already gathered around them. Then, one more stops its roaming around and comes to join its companions in their collective sightless staring. It feels like they are all _waiting_ for the Anorak and Cry to give up the illusion.

 _Don't move,_ Cry pleads to the Anorak in his head because he is now too exhausted to form words with his mouth. He can feel the Anorak's agitation from the way the other man is barely breathing, from the way his grip on Cry's wrist and leg tightens almost painfully, from the sweat that is visibly forming on his temples. Cry bites down his tongue, terrified by the increasing possibility that they might not be able to make it out of this in time. He is terrified that he won't be able to hold onto wakefulness any longer, and that eventually, one of them will break from their stillness and the whole swarm of zombies will be upon them in seconds. _Don't move,_ he chants. _Don't move don't move don't move don't move._

And then somewhere in the distance is an unmistakable echoing crack of a gunshot. Cry is too scared by their present situation to react to it. However, that one sound is enough to alert every zombie to the noise's direction.

They roar.

It is unlike the roar of any kind of predator. It is inhuman, chilling and terrifying. Cry has heard them do this before, back in the Asian grocery store when he and Pewdie were trapped in a corner and subsequently saved by the loud, popping sounds of Delta's firecrackers. Hearing this collective howl again right in the middle of the horde strikes a different level of fear in his heart. A more basic and primitive kind. The type that sends every animal fleeing from the scene only to cower in terror in their holes. It startles him more than the sound of the echoing gunshot. It scares him enough that he buries his face into the Anorak's back in response to his primal instinct to hide. Through the fabric, he feels the other man's heart jumping and pounding a mad, panicked rhythm against his back.

There is a blur of frantic movement all around them. The beasts have decided to migrate, all of them in mutual agreement of pursuing this disturbance. Cry hears their many footsteps shuffling and squashing the damp earth under them, their vicious and excited snarling, feels them brushing against them as they pass by. He doesn't know how long this continues on but eventually, the sounds are carried further and further away until they become nothing but noises in the far distance.

Not long after that, the Anorak sways and collapses onto his knees, his flashlight thumping onto the ground. The sudden movement causes Cry's grip to loosen and he lets go, slumping against the Anorak's back and letting his head hang upside down again. His muscles ache from the exertion he had put them through. For a few minutes, he and the Anorak take a moment to catch their breath. The Anorak doesn't speak throughout that period of recovery and neither does Cry. There is no need for words to discuss what they had just gone through. There is only relief that the whole ordeal is over for now.

Sometime later, the Anorak picks up his flashlight and rises to his feet, taking a moment to adjust Cry on his shoulders. "Are you still with me?" he asks. There is a slight tremor in his mostly composed voice.

Seeing that he can't form any more words, Cry settles with tugging the fabric of the other man's hoodie as his response instead. He doubts that he will be able to pull himself up again this time. "Alright," the Anorak acknowledges and then begins to walk again to resume their journey.

The rain had all but stopped by the time they finally make it out of the woods. With his head still hanging upside down, Cry can just about see, from this angle, the silvery rays of moonlight lighting up the grass they are crossing. Eventually, his eyelids had gone back to becoming noticeably heavy and his mind had grown sluggish, teetering on the edge of wakefulness. Soon, he knows he will be unable to stop his own fatigue from finally claiming him.

He thinks the Anorak had stopped in mid-step for a moment, like something ahead had caught his attention, and Cry is only able to find out what it is when the other man begins to speak but his words are not directed at him. Instead, the other man is addressing someone who must be standing or sitting there somewhere in front of them. "Where's Barbetta?"

A quiet familiar voice answers. "There were too many of them. All headed towards the woods. Too dangerous for fighting. Loud noises excite them after all. We had to wait until they were called away from here. We know this is where you'll be." It takes some extra mental effort to interpret those words but Cry does manage to catch one thing: 'We', she had said. Despite the term of address, he knows that there is only one person standing there.

"Barbetta isn't here, then?" the Anorak asks since there hadn't been a direct answer to his original question.

"No," Tesla answers in that same concise and straightforward way of hers. "Just us."

And like Cry, the Anorak doesn't ask Tesla for a clarification of who 'we' and 'us' are. The other man hums thoughtfully on something else instead. "Do you know where the others are?"

"There was a gunshot not long ago," Cry hears Tesla point out meaningfully. "Where do you think it might have come from?"

But that was where that mass of zombies were headed. Could it be that one of their team had fired the gun?

"We should go," the Anorak announces and as they begin their trek again, Cry senses the end of his self-control coming when his mind finally begins to shut itself down. He reacts a little when someone lifts the hood of the space blanket off his head and he happens to catch a glimpse of Tesla staring up at him. He can see her makeshift spear clutched in her other hand, the pointed end painted red with blood, although whose blood it is, Cry cannot guess. The image of her blurs in his darkening vision.

"You didn't drop anything," he hears her say to him. Somewhere in her voice is a hint of satisfaction, as if she is pleased that Cry had passed some sort of test. "You didn't drop anything you have with you."

Where have I heard that before? His weary mind asks him before dipping back into his memories:

Agitation. A manhole. A small hand in his. A set of instructions. (Holy fuck. Had she known all along?) Pewdie's glow stick. The fall into the river. (Had she anticipated that this might happen, that this _will_ happen?) A red light in the wet darkness. A beacon for help. The Anorak dragging him out of the water. (How did she know how did she know how _can_ she know who are you Tesla what _are_ you–)

_Don't drop anything you have with you. Do you understand?_

He feels himself tilt over the edge and he is lost in another dark abyss once more.

 

Vegas says, "I'm sorry."

"We should go," she then urges after a minute.

"Pewdie, I think we should let him go." There is a hint of desperation in her voice this time. But Pewdie still refuses to stop. He feels like a madman, pacing along the length of the riverbank, casting Torchy's beam over the swift-flowing waters again and again as he searches desperately for any sign of Cry. He wants to know whether the other man is alive or not. He wants to see a body. The idea of never finding Cry at all seems worse than coming across the other man's corpse. He imagines that this must be how distraught parents feel towards their missing child because the thought of never knowing what happened to them is a hard one to bear.

In the beginning, he had been confident that there _was_ a possibility that Cry might have survived the river, and he had grasped that hopeful thought with everything he has. It was the one thing that filled his mind when he and Vegas escaped the hydropower plant. Pewdie couldn't recall the details of that escape except that Vegas had been irritable with him for a while, especially when he became careless enough to approach an unstable part of the riverbank and nearly fell into the water when the ground began to crumble under his feet. Afterwards, she became cooperative and joined him in his search. They spent a substantial amount of time wandering downriver, scanning the rushing waters and inspecting the length of riverbank but finding no signs of Cry anywhere.

Looking at the river up close though, it was difficult to believe that anyone could actually survive that strong current. As their search continued to produce fruitless results, Pewdie felt his optimism shrink the longer they keep at it. Eventually, his initial hopeful thought that Cry might have survived the river slowly morphed into the wish for Pewdie to find him in any state at all, whether dead or alive or reanimated. As terrible as this was, it was better to have a simple confirmation than to be left hanging in the wind.

"Pewdie." He feels Vegas's hand land on his arm. Her touch is tentative and gentle despite her stern voice. "We can't stay here all night. We have to get back to the others. It's been almost an hour. I think it's time we let him go."

Pewdie merely shakes his head at her words and rasps out a response, " _You_ go. I'm gonna stay." He doesn't have the will to leave the riverside yet. He doesn't have the will to do anything at all. He just wants to sit down and wait and wait forever for an answer.

Vegas gives his arm a forceful tug. "Well, I'm not leaving without you," she says. "God, Pewdie. I know – I know this is a fucking awful situation but you can't just stay here. The others are waiting for us. We need to move on. We have to keep going."

Unexpectedly, Pewdie's eyes begin to water at the familiar words. Cry says things like that too, he recalls. Cry says things like that all the fucking time. _We have to keep going. We just keep on going._ Keep going. Keep going. What if Pewdie can't do that anymore? He furiously swipes the tears from his eyes, determined not to break down in front of Vegas. Fuck, this is a really fucking awful situation.

"Hey." Vegas stands in front of him, forcing him to meet her eyes. "I'm not leaving without you," she says again. "And I'm not trying to push you to forget. I'm not pushing you to stop being sad either. But I know you're smart enough to understand that this isn't the time for that. At least, not right now."

Pewdie doesn't answer. His gaze darts over to the river again.

"I'm really sorry about Cry," Vegas continues, a note of patience in her voice. "And even when I said I have a promise to keep to D, I'm doing this not because of a favour and not because I don't care about you. I'm doing this because _Cry_ cares about you and if he were still here, I know he'd want you safe."

That certainly wakes him up. Vegas is right. If Cry had been the one who was alive and standing in Pewdie's place instead, Pewdie would have wanted the same thing too. He would have given anything in the world for Cry to be safe. For a second there, he wishes for the river to have taken him instead, except – _no_. The thought of Cry pacing up and down the riverside in hopes of finding a body like Pewdie had done was just too awful to bear.

"Pewdie." Vegas is waiting for him. He feels torn between wanting to stay here and leaving. In the end, he tries to mull upon it in a more objective light: For one thing, there is no point in staying here and wallowing in grief because what can he hope to find here? What happens if he never finds Cry? What happens if he _does_ find him and the other man's fate turns out to be a bad one? How will that affect Pewdie? What will he do then? Where can he go then? Where can he go now that Cry was gone and he is lost again and doesn't know what the fuck to do or whether he can even keep himself going?

When the choice of death flits through his mind, he lingers on it for a while before eventually stomping on the thought. No, he cannot consider that as an option. Because he wouldn't wish for that to happen to Cry even if the latter had not been the one to fall into the river. He doubts Cry would consider it anyway. There is a reason why Cry had been alive up until this point after all. He possessed something that made him stronger than the other unfortunate souls who had perished throughout this new zombie era – a will to live. That was why he always said, _we keep going, we just keep on going._ Because if he didn't, there was nothing else left but to give up.

And Pewdie has to do the same thing too. He cannot give up. He has to accept this. He has to move on. He has to keep going. He has to _try_ even though he doesn't want to. He has to survive and this is the only logical answer to his dilemma.

"Okay," he finally rasps out to Vegas and it is the only thing he can manage for now. "Okay."

Vegas looks relieved at his decision and takes it as her cue to move. Pewdie forces himself to follow her lead, determined not to look back in case his resolution to leave the riverside decides to crumble. Together, they move quickly in the dark, following the trail that their flashlights illuminate for them.

He doesn't know how far they travelled through the light, wispy rain – Pewdie's mind had been half-alert of his surroundings after all – but when Vegas stops in the middle of a thicket of trees, he nearly walks into her. He stumbles back just in time before his boots bump against something familiar. A concrete slab. The manhole he and Cry went down some hours before. His heart aches at the sight.

"Tesla was supposed to meet us here," Vegas murmurs as she shines her flashlight around only to find the area completely empty. "She and Delta and me, we were the ones doing the scavenging while you two went to do the distraction. Barbetta and the Anorak were stationed outside the camp to keep a lookout for us." She then falls into a brief contemplative silence.

"So, we wait?" Pewdie says after that pause.

Vegas nods. "I guess we wait."

Pewdie sits down on the concrete slab. His body feels heavy, worn-out by all the action and exertion it had gone through. His mind feels weary as well, trying its best to stay strong and focused while fighting off the waves of grief brought on by Cry's disappearance. His swollen cheek and neck feel tender when he cautiously touches them with his fingertips. He isn't aware that Vegas is taking a seat beside him until she says offhandedly, "You're making a mess."

Pewdie realises that his other hand had been busy yanking tufts of grass that were growing out of the cracks of the concrete slab. "Oh," he says emotionlessly but does not stop.

She falls silent after that – perhaps she had taken note of his indifference – and they both watch him pull grass out of the concrete. Naturally, the silence they are in awakens his thoughts and Pewdie finds himself going over the scenario again, replaying the events in his mind, trying to find a factor, or several factors, that might have caused this to happen. He thinks of the beginning, when he gave into the idea of helping the group with their op, when he went ahead and persuaded Cry to agree. He thinks back to the thunderstorm influencing the strong current of the river. He thinks about Cry setting off the firecrackers and exposing the group of bandits who happened to be in the camp with them, the very same group who were eventually found out by the residents and were forced into a gunfight in order to escape.

If only Pewdie hadn't agreed to join this op, then this wouldn't have happened. If only the op had taken place on a clear night instead of a fucking thunderstorm, then this wouldn't have happened. If only those bandits hadn't been there and their stupid gunfight hadn't forced him and Cry to the underside of the bridge, then this fucking thing wouldn't have happened. If only – if only – _wait_.

There is something nagging in his memory, something someone said. It was one of the first things that Pewdie heard about the op. What was it, what was it? Something about a reason? The reason why they picked tonight out of all nights? Yes, he recalls that the group had chosen tonight because the thunderstorm provided a convenient cover for their presence. But there was something else. A small little detail that he disregarded as unimportant.

He remembers having an irrational feeling of irritation towards the messenger of that piece of information. Remembers mismatched eyes. The Anorak. The other man said something about "they". Pewdie hadn't given much attention to the message at first but now he can recall his exact words because he always felt strongly to whatever that bastard says – "They said the day after tomorrow is good. There's a likelihood of a storm coming". "They _said_ ". Not 'they say'. This was not a general statement. No, "they" was someone _specific_. "They" was a party from _outside_ the Fire House. So who else knew of this op? Who else had been there in the camp with them? Who– oh, no fucking way.

The _bandits._ The fucking bandits. Pewdie had been on edge after his recent brush with death in the form of fingers around his neck but he remembers being momentarily confused when one of the bandits assumed that their plan had been sabotaged. They assumed that someone was trying to blow their cover and that the firecrackers had been set off to alert the residents of the camp of their presence. Holy shit. Were Doc's group involved in this? Were _they_ the ones who had sabotaged the bandits' plans? Did they just send Cry and himself to start a fight between the two survivor groups so that Delta and the others could carry out their stealing? Had they been piggy-backing on someone else's operation all along?

"What's wrong?" Vegas's voice snaps him out of his thoughts. She is sitting very still, her expression one of alarm. "You just stopped all of a sudden," she then clarifies and Pewdie realises that he had ceased his grass-pulling task. She must have taken it for something else because she says, "Did you hear something? Is it the Dead? Are they coming this way?"

"No," Pewdie answers with a frown. He then fixes her a hard, penetrating stare. "Did you know about the bandits all along?" he asks bluntly.

"That they were going to be here tonight?" Vegas answers unashamedly. Whether she picked up the dangerous note in Pewdie's voice or not is hard to tell. Either way, she doesn't seem at all surprised by the question. Perhaps she had expected this confrontation to come up sooner or later. "Yes, we did," she then admits.

Something hot and fiery burns its way up Pewdie's chest from her easily delivered answer. ( _You knew you knew why didn't you tell us why did you think that was a good idea–)_. Despite this, he has to keep the emotion down in order to form his next question: "And when you wanted us to create a distraction..."

"Because making them fight _was_ the distraction," Vegas answers in that same unworried tone of hers. "Everyone's going to be too busy trying to kill each other that no one is going to bother guarding the stores."

If Pewdie thought about it, this distraction plan of theirs was actually pretty ingenious – forcing two hostile groups into battle while you carried out your own task behind their backs. It was sneaky. It was diabolical. It was clever. And judging from the heavy weight of Vegas's bag, the plan had worked. Still, the question remains.

"You didn't think about telling _us_ that little detail?" Pewdie grinds out. He feels ashamed that he had staked his belief on this – thinking that he was doing the right thing by lending help to these people because it was supposed to be a form of pay-back, a gesture of thanks for their hospitality. The fact that he and Cry had been kept in the dark despite their honourable intention provokes the rage in his chest to swell so much that he can feel it straining against his self-control.

"It wasn't that important," Vegas tells him and that's when Pewdie loses it.

"You fucking _kidding_ me?" he almost screeches in outrage, making his stinging throat sear in pain at the effort. His raspy voice sounds so strange to his ears now that he is forcing it out to shatter the peace of the trees around them. "How the fuck is that _not_ important?"

Now that the issue has come up, he begins noticing the holes in the op's plan – the fact that it never told them that the camp they were sneaking into is a hydropower plant, that it never told them where to go once they got inside, that it never told them where to escape once their job was done. It certainly never mentioned the fact that their actual job involved triggering a gunfight between two survivor groups to serve as a means of distraction. Pewdie is not at all pleased to find out that he and Cry had been purposely fed with incomplete pieces of information and were foolish enough not to address it.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell us this?" Pewdie demands. "Why keep this from us? Why did you lie?"

"We didn't keep anything from you," Vegas tells him levelly and it is impressive how she never once flinched from Pewdie's wrath despite her size. "And we never lied to you _._ We just didn't tell you because it wasn't necessary for you to know."

"That's bullshit," Pewdie spits out the word.

"We never _lied,_ " Vegas says again. "Look, we all have our parts to play in this op. Yours was the simplest. Set off a bunch of firecrackers and get out. You didn't have to know the particulars around it because you shouldn't have to do anything that could be any more dangerous than that one simple task."

Pewdie doesn't bother answering this time. He merely glares at the other woman with as much resentment as he can muster. Vegas, on the other hand, continues to stand her ground. Then, for the first time since their exchange began, her voice takes on a steely nature.

"Tell me," she says in a carefully measured tone. "Do you think it would have changed anything?" And something in the way she had uttered the word "anything" makes him realise that it is not the discovery of this concealment that he is affected by after all – _Do you think telling you would have helped save Cry from his fate?_

No, it wouldn't. No matter how much Pewdie wants to pin this catastrophe on the group's decision not to tell them the entirety of the plan, the disclosure of this detail will not change anything. Cry would still have fallen into the river anyway. Either of them would have died in many different other ways. It is no use for him to be angry about it especially when that rage is mostly fuelled by his grief for Cry.

Shit. Thinking about Cry hurt a _lot_.

Pewdie turns back to yanking the grass out of the concrete, albeit with newfound viciousness. He has nothing else to say to Vegas, not wanting any more of her unperturbed manner towards his questions or her indifference towards his grief-induced anger. They fall into a tense and strained silence.

After several long minutes though, Vegas breaks that silence with a sigh and a murmur, "Losing someone always sucks."

Pewdie scoffs, the sound coming out bitter and indignant. "No shit."

"You just wanna get angry at the world," Vegas continues.

"It isn't fucking fair," Pewdie finds himself agreeing. That red hot rage is back in his chest, climbing up his throat, wanting to be released in the form of a furious scream. He is so angry at the fact that after what Cry had done, after saving Pewdie from being strangled to death, the reward he gets in return is a fall into the river to drown in its surging waters. The whole thing is just fucking _unfair_.

"It doesn't get any easier," Vegas points out. "It never gets any easier. That's why we all have to deal with it. Accept shit as it is."

"God," Pewdie exhales, and he is vaguely aware that somehow, the air between Vegas and himself is mellowing into something almost tolerable the more they continue to talk. "How do people even _cope_?" His voice sounds strangled coming out of his mouth.

"You move on," Vegas replies grimly, staring at nothing in the distance. "You hold on. You keep going. You find some sort of reason to keep going. You can rage at the world as much as you want but in the end, you have to keep telling yourself that you're gonna be okay. Even when your life was already bad before, when you had to do some shady shit just to put food on the table, or when you had to watch someone you know get mowed down by bullets in your backyard. Even when your Ma was forced into a straitjacket and taken away, or your brothers got sent to jail for street fighting and manslaughter, or when other people keep telling you that you got no future because you're an ex-con's kid. Even when your life was shit before and you drift through every day without any purpose and think that it'll never get any better, you still have to keep telling yourself that you're gonna be fucking _okay_."

As silence descends, Vegas's passionate outburst leaves Pewdie staring speechlessly at her, his anger now long gone and replaced by surprise. Suddenly, this had become a personal thing. Suddenly, Pewdie had caught a glimpse of Vegas's history prior to this apocalypse. He gradually begins to see exactly where that side of her – her no-nonsense attitude and tough demeanour – had originated from. Vegas was used to surviving the hardships that plagued her life in the past and she had inculcated that same approach in her lifestyle now. Like Cry, she knew her priorities. Like Cry, she understood that no matter what happened, the most important thing was to try and keep yourself going.

Eventually, Vegas seems to realise what she had just revealed to Pewdie because she quickly stands up and begins pacing on the ground in front of him. "Damn," she mutters and Pewdie can hear the distress and embarrassment in her voice. He fidgets in return, feeling as if he had imposed on something that was too private to know. "Damn," Vegas continues to mutter. "Where is D and his stupid jokes when I need him?"

The silence between them becomes uncomfortably awkward to the point where Pewdie feels a need to break it. His mouth suddenly decides to act out on its own by spilling words that make up the worst possible attempt at cheering someone up: "When in despair, don't be a salad. Be the best damn broccoli you could ever be." The instant the words leave his mouth, he regrets saying them. Oh holy god. Why did he say that? That was _stupid._

And he knows it when Vegas stops and turns to stare down at him, her face a mask of pure incredulity. Pewdie can actually _feel_ the wrongness of his actions and briefly contemplates on springing onto his feet and running away before the other woman decides to slap him on the face again. Except that Vegas, to his utter disbelief, suddenly bursts into a fit of screaming laughter.

"What the hell?" she utters in a frightening combination of a giggle and a screech. "What the actual _hell_ , Pewdie? Broccoli? _Broccoli_? How does _that_ have anything to do with _anything_?"

"Uh..." Pewdie is speechless with surprise again by this reaction. Vegas is still laughing, trying to say "broccoli" and "salad" and "'des- _pear'_ " and "so _stupid_ " in between her gasps. Eventually, she quietens down and turns to look at him again.

"Please tell me you don't say stupid things like that to Cry too?" she asks and Pewdie can still hear the traces of laughter in her voice.

"Er, I do. I sometimes do, I guess," Pewdie replies. _All the time_ , he would have corrected if he were to include his videos. He always says stupid shit like that and strangely enough, some of the viewers seemed to love them.

"Hmm," Vegas hums approvingly and tilts her head to study him in the beam of their flashlights. "I can see why Cry likes having you around."

"Well, I like making him laugh," Pewdie smiles weakly, even though he feels the melancholy creep over him at the mention of Cry. "He's got this weird, cute laugh. I mean, you hear it and then you think, ' _what?'_ I don't know. I mean, like, when he laughs, he makes everything funnier, and better, and brighter. Like, you hear it and you know that laugh is something really special."

Vegas's eyebrow quirks up in interest. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," Pewdie says and goes quiet for a moment as he reaches up to gingerly touch his still smarting neck, fingertips tracing the marks on his skin. For the first time since Cry's disappearance, he becomes conscious of the fact that he is actually still alive _,_ still standing and breathing his next breath of life, still sane and whole and _alive_ even after going through so much. And this one fact continues to be an astonishing one for him.

"But seriously though," he then murmurs to the listening Vegas because he feels that he ought to tell her this. "I wouldn't have lasted this long if it weren't for Cry. He's the one thing that kept me going all this time."

Vegas actually cracks a smile at that, and the far-away look in her eyes gives away the fact that she is probably reminiscing about someone similar in her life. Afterwards, she releases a deep sigh that relaxes her whole posture.

"I'm really sorry about Cry," she then offers her condolences again, although this time, her voice is gentle and the words are a lot more sincere and sympathetic than before. "I know I said that stuff like this happens all the time and that it doesn't get any easier. But it's different, isn't it? When it's someone important to you? And Cry was important to you."

Pewdie is silent again. He doesn't answer nor does he feel any need to do so. Vegas seems to understand because she gives him a sympathetic smile.

A second later though, the smile drops from her face and she suddenly becomes tense with alertness. Pewdie jumps when she jerks forward, seizing his arm, and hauls him onto his feet. All traces of their conversation dissipate in the surrounding darkness.

"Listen, listen!" Vegas hisses, holding up a finger in attention. They both keep quiet, straining their ears to pick up whatever sound the other woman had detected.

At first, Pewdie is confused by what he thinks he hears. He can make out faint noises in the distance. Snarling, moaning, groaning undead voices. And there is something more – a collection of _thumps_ and _whooshes_ and _crunches_ and _splats_. Sounds of fighting. Is there someone out there? Are they in trouble? Should he and Vegas help them?

Pewdie shoots a quick look at Vegas and catches the same question in her eyes.

"What should we do?" he asks her. When he thinks about zombies, he doesn't find himself feeling frightened by them. Instead, he is itching to use his crowbar to kill things the way Cry does when too many feelings were happening to him.

"I'm not sure," Vegas murmurs, narrowing her eyes.

"Maybe we should go and see," Pewdie suggests because he feels that it is the right thing to do.

"What if it's trouble?"

"If it is, then someone might need our help," he reasons and feels a burst of courage ignite within him. The emotion compels him to pull himself out of Vegas's hold and immediately head towards the darkness, tugging his crowbar free from his bag while doing so.

"Whoa. Hey, wait," he hears Vegas call out before she runs after him. Together, they follow the sounds, moving quickly and quietly through the trees until they reach what seems to be the end of this copse. It had stopped raining, Pewdie notices, because when he looks up, he can see a glimpse of a patch of dark sky beyond the leaves. He and Vegas eventually settle behind two thick tree trunks that are close enough to provide a gap to peek through. When the other woman abruptly switches off her flashlight, Pewdie looks at her confusedly before following her lead. They then stand together in the semi-darkness.

"Can you see anything?" Vegas whispers over the continued sounds of fighting.

"Er, _no_ ," Pewdie informs her in a matter-of-factly tone. Even through the gap, he cannot see much. "Because we turned off all our lights. Why'd you do that by the way?"

"I don't want to alert whoever's out there," Vegas answers. "They might end up shooting us if we're not careful."

Pewdie frowns. "Why the hell would they shoot us?" he asks. "It's not like we're zombies. Zombies don't carry flashlights."

"Of course not, genius," Vegas mutters and Pewdie can almost hear her rolling her eyes. "Thing is, we don't know who the hell is out there. It might be one of us, or it might be someone we don't want to mess with. We need to find out who it is first before we can decide to help them."

"Come on. Is that really necessary?" Pewdie thinks that Vegas might be overreacting a little bit if she had come up with that decision. "I'm sure whoever is out there would be grateful if we give them our help. They're not the enemy here. It's those zombies we all have to worry about."

Before Vegas can retort to that, they hear an inhuman snarl that comes far too late, and something darts out of the gloom of the trees, making Vegas cry out in alarm. Pewdie jumps at the noise, fumbling with his flashlight before switching it on. A zombie stands on the other side of the tree trunks they are hiding behind, one bony arm shot through the gap to seize Vegas by the sleeve. Vegas is spitting curses and struggling to pull herself out of its iron grip.

Pewdie acts. He brings up his crowbar, ready to plunge the sharp end into the creature's eye socket. His flashlight suddenly picks up a glint of metal. Then he hears a feminine voice grunting in exertion from somewhere nearby.

The next thing he knows, the zombie which had been holding onto Vegas's sleeve is suddenly propelled sideways by an immense force from a hard and heavy object. The sharp whooshing sound of air startles him so much that he yells, almost dropping his crowbar as he stumbles to the ground.

"What...?" Pewdie raises his flashlight, trying to understand what had happened. When he shines Torchy on the tree trunks again, the zombie and its attacker are gone.

"Barbetta," Vegas says as she tries to catch her breath from the effort she'd used to pull herself free. She leans down to help him up on his feet. "Barbetta knocked that bitch down. She's out there. Come on."

They stumble out of the trees and step into a clearing lit by the weak light of a moon half-hidden by wispy clouds. There is at least a dozen zombies here but many are already lying dead and mutilated on the ground, leaving only five of their original number still standing and ready to be dealt with. When Pewdie takes a cautious step forward with an intention to join the fight, he jumps back in disgust when his foot sinks into one of the dead creatures. Its head had been reduced to a horrific mess of mushed flesh, crushed bones and shrivelled chunks of brain matter. He grimaces at the sight, fighting back a wave of nausea.

"Damn. We missed most of the show," Vegas suddenly comments beside him and Pewdie looks up to see what on earth she is talking about.

Barbetta stands in the middle of this carnage, her leather jacket and pants splashed with blood and guts. Her sledgehammer is also tipped with blood, dripping from the metal head and staining the grass under her feet. She wastes no time swinging her sledgehammer onto the leg of the zombie that is staggering towards her, the blow instantly crushing its bones and making it crumple to the ground. With one mighty swing, she drives the metal head of her weapon onto the creature's head, crushing the top half of the skull and smashing the brain inside. Blood and gore spurt out in rivulets from the explosive blow.

In that moment, Pewdie is mesmerised by her fantastic image, by how well she wields the sledgehammer in her gloved hands as she twists and turns, darts and dodges the remaining zombies' attacks. There is no hesitation and wastage of energy when she swings and smashes at anything that comes near her. Her movements are graceful and fluid, almost like a deadly dance. Pewdie can see the muscles tensing in her smooth neck, her blonde braid swinging in the air with every turn, the way her lovely breasts jiggle and bounce as she moves. Most of all, he is especially struck by the discrepancy between the sheer brutality in her actions and the cool and composed expression on her face, as if she isn't killing things as much as playing a simple game of poker. He begins to understand just what Vegas meant by 'missing most of the show'. He certainly would have liked to see this fight from the beginning.

Eventually, Barbetta pounds the last zombie head in before releasing her sledgehammer, letting the handle thump onto the ground. Unexpectedly, she suddenly sways and bends over, putting her hands onto her knees and takes several deep breaths. Pewdie is taken aback by her display of tiredness. After that mesmerising performance, he had foolishly expected her to be invincible like a videogame character. Perhaps Barbetta is a lot more human than he'd first thought.

Vegas takes the sledgehammer dropping to the ground as her cue to dash over to the other woman.

"Y'alright?" Pewdie hears her ask as he follows after her at a slower pace. It is a bit of a challenge to manoeuvre through dead, mutilated bodies and mounds of mushed flesh and bone and blood. Pewdie can feel his stomach roiling in disgust at the smell of decaying flesh all around him.

"Yes," he hears Barbetta reply in between deep breaths. "Yes – give me – a moment – catch my breath. Sledgehammer – tires me easily."

"Whoo, girl. You look like a badass taking on all of them at once," Vegas praises heartily. "Shame you didn't let us know you were here earlier on. I bet I could prolly shoot them all a lot quicker than you can smash 'em."

"Hmp – maybe – next time?" Barbetta offers as she straightens up, her slim shoulders still heaving with every breath she takes.

"Me against you?" Vegas grins. "You're on." Then, she sweeps her gaze over the area. "So where's Tesla? She was supposed to meet us by the manhole."

"I'm not sure," Barbetta answers nonchalantly. She seems to have regained her composure very quickly for her expression had settled back to its usual indifference. "I found this horde walking towards the manhole and thought it best to eliminate them."

"Well, you certainly took your time," Vegas grumbles. "We've been waiting for someone to come for a while."

"Apologies," Barbetta says. She then notices Pewdie quietly standing there, watching them converse. "One of you is missing," she points out and directs her gaze at the empty space beside him. "What happened?"

Pewdie doesn't know if he can get himself to answer. He is grateful when Vegas steps in and decides to do that for him. "Cry fell into the river," she reveals in a grim tone. "We tried to find him. But..." her words then trail off.

Barbetta settles her gaze back on Pewdie. "Condolences," she utters and the slight furrowing of her eyebrows becomes an indication of her sympathy. Pewdie nods in reply, unable to speak.

"Well, we should go find the others," Vegas suggests, turning around, but in one quick motion, Barbetta's hand suddenly darts out and snatches the other woman's handgun out of her holster. She suddenly trains the firearm straight at Pewdie. His heart jumps. The shock of seeing the barrel aimed at him paralyses him for a moment.

"Pewdie, _duck_ ," Barbetta commands.

Pewdie, out of instinct, ducks.

The gunshot is remarkably loud, even out here in the open space, and its subsequent echo is heard reverberating across the trees. Pewdie had actually felt the bullet whooshing through the air above his head. His eardrums pulse in pain at the burst of noise. He cowers on the ground with arms over his head and his heart beating out a fast rhythm of fear.

Someone brushes past him, making him turn around to see Barbetta streaking across the bloodied grass, wielding her sledgehammer in her hands. On the last minute, she lifts the weapon and swings it right into the face of a zombie that had appeared in their clearing. There is a nasty wet _thump_ as the metal connects with the creature's face. The zombie is thrown onto the ground where it lies there, unmoving, with its dead companions.

"Are you _crazy_?" Vegas splutters once they are certain that the danger has now passed. She picks up the gun that Barbetta must have dropped when the other woman went to retrieve her sledgehammer and begins gesticulating frantically in the air. "Why'd you have to use my gun? What's the point of shooting my goddamn gun when we all know you're so crap at aiming?"

"What just happened?" Pewdie decides to interrupt. He shakily rises onto his feet while massaging his ringing ears. "Where did that zombie come from?"

"I must have missed one," Barbetta tells him. "It was still too far away from us so I reached for a ranged weapon instead. I forgot how difficult it was to fire a gun at a target though."

"Yeah, thanks for the waste of bullets, 'Betta," Vegas mutters sarcastically.

"You're welcome," comes the deadpan reply. The unchanging indifferent expression on Barbetta's face when she utters her comeback at Vegas makes this scenario so amusing that Pewdie has to fight off the urge to laugh aloud. When he notices that his ears has stopped ringing completely, he is suddenly reminded of their current situation.

"We need to get out of here," he tells the other two. "That gunshot would've drawn attention. If there _are_ zombies wandering around the area, then there's no doubt they'll be coming this way."

"You're right," Vegas agrees, reaching out to pat him and Barbetta on the shoulder. "As much as I want to kill some Dead folk tonight, I think finding the others is more of a priority right now. Let's hurry."

They leave the clearing and set off into the night, the silence of the surrounding wood discouraging any petty conversations. At some point during their travelling, Vegas brings them to a brief stop when she detects the sound of a large zombie horde coming this way. Pewdie hears it too. A collection of snarling, moaning and groaning voices layered over dozens of shuffling feet.

"It sounds like they're heading to where 'Betta fired the gun," Vegas confirms Pewdie's suspicions as they continue to listen carefully to the noises. "Damn. And they're moving fast too. Usually happens when something loud makes them all excited. I don't think you want to ninja your way through _this_ bunch, Pewdie."

They change routes at this point, walking further and further away from the zombie mob's path before they can turn back to their original direction and proceed onwards. They are fortunate enough to make it through the trees without encountering any more approaching zombie hordes. Eventually, as Pewdie continues walking alongside the other two women, he begins to notice the growing distance between himself and the river like a palpable rope being stretched with each step he takes. Somewhere in his head is the gentle reminder that the one constant presence by his side is still lost. He shakes his head at the harrowing thought, setting it aside for the moment. His whole body feels spent, every muscle aching from the strain it had been put through. Right now, he just wants to go back to the Fire House, crawl into bed and not wake up for a while.

After some time though, they eventually reach the familiar area of plain grasslands that stretch on for miles with the occasional small patch of trees scattered here and there. About two hundred metres ahead of them, they spot two flashlight beams bobbing in the distance.

Vegas stops for a moment and pulls something out of her pocket. There is a familiar sound of something being unwrapped, something cracking, and then a neon yellow glow stick is shaken into life. Pewdie watches her wave it above her head a couple of times in an effort to catch the flashlight bearers' attention. Just when he thinks she might have failed, a red glow stick appears in the darkness, waving from side to side as a form of reply.

"That's them, alright," Vegas exclaims, beckoning him and Barbetta to follow her. "Come on."

Since there seems to be no danger nearby, they make their way across the expanse of grass at an almost leisurely pace. As the distance between the two parties shortens, Pewdie begins to make out two figures. He recognises that the shorter of the duo, the one who holding the red glow stick, is Tesla while the taller one is the Anorak. Delta, on the other hand, does not seem to be anywhere in sight.

However, the more they come closer to the pair, the more Pewdie realises that the Anorak is actually carrying something on his shoulders. He assumes that the other man must be lugging around a large portion of the stolen supplies from the camp, including what looks like, if he's not mistaken, a shovel–

His heart stutters for a moment, but he keeps moving. With each step he takes, he gradually comes to recognise the shape of the shovel sticking out of the Anorak's back, sees that the other man is holding onto a wrist and a leg, realises that the bulk he is carrying is in fact a body.

Suddenly, something snaps in the air around Pewdie. Suddenly, something tremendous and wild soars in his chest. Suddenly, his mind and body become consumed by a mad and overwhelming desire to _see_.

The next thing he knows, Pewdie is running across the grass in a mad scramble to get there first. He barely hears Vegas's surprised cry of "Pewdie?" as he sprints, momentarily forgetting about the other two women, his mind shutting out the rest of the world and his gaze and focus trained only on the figure draped across the Anorak's shoulders. His heart is pounding hard against his chest. His eyes are burning and watering as the wind tears through his hair. When his boot steps on a particularly slippery tuft of grass, still damp from the rain, his foot slides out from underneath him and he tumbles unceremoniously onto the ground. Pain sails alongside his side.

"Pewdie?" Vegas calls out concernedly from somewhere far behind him. "Whoa! Hey, Pewdie!"

Ignoring Vegas and his stinging limbs, Pewdie quickly clambers back onto his feet. Something wet and warm spills down his cheeks, tasting salty on his lips, and he reaches up to wipe it off his face. He is vaguely aware that he isn't running anymore but limping forward instead, his leg muscle cramping a little courtesy of his fall. Despite this, his burning, blurry, watery gaze never once shifts from the unmoving figure or its shovel.

The Anorak sees him approach. He must have also seen the mad hopeful gleam in Pewdie's eyes because he turns a little to the side to expose his back to him. Pewdie eventually comes to a stop before the other man, his heart pounding so hard that he is sure it is about to burst in his chest. He stares at the body sprawled across the Anorak's shoulders and back, noticing the thin silvery sheet with a hood covering the head. He reaches out, fingers touching the hood, pulls it back, stops breathing.

Cry.

Cry. Cry. _Cry._ It is Cry, in the flesh, draped across the Anorak's shoulders. It is Cry, and his eyes are closed, his bare head looks strange without his cap, he isn't moving but fuck it, he is _here._ Pewdie lingers close, unsure of what to do at first, unsure of whether he should touch him to confirm the realness. In the end, he slides one of his hands into Cry's limp one, grasping it gently as if it is made of fragile glass, and holds his other hand close to the latter's nose and mouth. He feels the faint huffs of air brushing softly against his palm.

Pewdie becomes awfully weak with relief all of a sudden. When he opens his mouth, he finds the lump in his sore throat making it hard for him to speak or form any words. After swallowing a couple of times, he looks up at the Anorak and manages to rasp out a weak and shaky exclamation: "He's alive?"

The Anorak looks over his shoulder to answer him. "I saw him somewhere downriver. He had that glow stick with him. I managed to pull him out of the current in time."

The glow stick? Pewdie sends a quick glance at the item clutched in Tesla's hand, realising that it is his. How long had Cry been in the water before the Anorak spotted him and hauled him out?

"He's breathing?" Pewdie's words fumble out of his lips in an incomplete jumble.

"Not when I dragged him out at first," the Anorak reports. "But he came around after a minute or two. He's unconscious right now. Too exhausted to keep himself awake for too long."

"He's hurt?"

"There'll definitely be some bruises but I don't think he broke or tore anything. Rest assured, he's gonna be fine."

Pewdie forces himself to calm down from the many questions that are jostling for attention in his mind, battling for the chance to be answered. Instead, he expels the jitteriness quivering through his body in the form of a long, deep sigh. " _Shiiit_ ," he breathes, letting go of Cry to press a hand over his eyes as the overwhelming flood of relief crashes through him like a powerful tidal wave. "Holy fucking _shit._ "

"Pewdie?" It is Vegas again. She and Barbetta must have finally caught up to him. He can sense her standing behind him and feels her hand gently touch his back. "Hey Pewdie?" There is note of delight in her voice, probably from the discovery that Cry is wonderfully alive all this time.

"Y-Yeah," Pewdie gasps out shakily and at once, his eyes begin spilling hot tears into his palm. He quickly brings up his other hand to cover his face and try to stop the flow. "Just–" he says in a strangled sort of voice. "Just – give me – a s-second–"

It is difficult to describe how he feels right now. It is a turmoil of emotions, all churning together so convolutedly that it is hard to pull apart each individual feeling. There is something like relief. There is something like joy. Something like gratitude. Something like fear. Something like love and pain and sorrow and guilt and anger and so many others that Pewdie cannot find precise labels for. He lets them flow through him for a second as he clutches his own face in his hands and sucks in a sharp hiccupping sob. After that second though, he forces this tempest of emotions back, embarrassed as he is by the attention he is getting from the others, and takes his time rubbing away the hot tears that are continuously spilling from his eyes.

Cry is _alive_. Thank _god_ he's alive.

"Okay there?" Vegas is patting him reassuringly on the back when Pewdie finally emerges from his hands, having regained some control over himself. When he sees a circle of sympathetic faces around him, he gives an embarrassingly loud sniffle and laughs sheepishly at himself for doing so.

"Yeah," he replies, trying to smile. "Yeah. Geez, don't worry about me. I'm going to be fucking okay."

Vegas's lips curl into a smile of her own at his words and Pewdie yelps in surprise when she gives him a light hearty smack on the back. "Hell, I'm glad," she says, the smile then widening into a grin. "I'm glad he made it. And I'm glad things worked out in the end. But either way, we still got a long night ahead of us. _And_ we still need to find Delta, whom I _think_ should be waiting for us by that stupid fire truck of his. That boy better not lose my ice axe or I'll skin his ass."

"How do you know he's gonna be there?" Pewdie chances to ask, sniffling again in an attempt to clear his stuffy nose.

"Back-up plan," Barbetta supplies. "If Delta can't find any of us at our designated checkpoints, he's supposed to wait by the fence where that fire engine is. If neither of us comes back in a couple of hours, he goes back to the Fire House alone. I suggest we not let him do that while we're still able."

Once again, they set off into the night as a much larger and more complete group. While moving through the grasslands together, Pewdie experiences the strange sensation of floating rather than walking alongside the others. The joy of seeing Cry breathing and mostly unhurt and alive had swept away his anger, worries and doubts about this op. He thinks his displeasure about the true nature of their role in this mission is a petty issue compared to the experience of losing and getting Cry back again. He is exhausted from the stress of it but despite this weariness, he feels pumped enough for one last run. Right now, nothing matters more than to quickly return to the Fire House so that Cry can receive the medical attention he needs.

Speaking of Cry, Pewdie cannot help but hover close to the unconscious man, grateful as he is to have him back in one piece, even if his cap was missing, likely washed away and lost in the river. He briefly contemplates on taking Cry's hand again but decides against it in the end, not wanting the others to stare. Instead, his gaze moves from Cry's head to the back of the Anorak's neck.

Looking at the other man now, Pewdie realises that the usual feeling of dislike which he normally has for the Anorak has lessened. Something new stirs within his chest – a feeling of grudging respect towards the other man for what he had done, for risking his own life to pull Cry out of the river. If the Anorak hadn't been there at the right place and at the right time, if he hadn't taken that risk to dive into those surging waters, then Cry would have been lost to Pewdie forever. Regardless of what the latter thought of the Anorak before or how much he may dislike him, one thing is for certain – Pewdie is greatly indebted to the other man for saving Cry's life.

When he watches the Anorak adjust Cry on his shoulders, the act compels him to tentatively ask, "Is he heavy?" It is the first time that Pewdie addresses the other man without a hint of malice in his voice. He thinks it might be his good mood that had influenced this.

The Anorak slows down his pace a little to let Pewdie catch up to him and Pewdie finds himself the subject of his penetrating gaze. "Not really," the Anorak answers. "I've carried plenty of people twice my weight."

Pewdie ignores the unpleasant feeling in his gut that he always seems to get whenever he hears the Anorak's voice. "Doesn't it get tiring? You know, especially if you carry them over long distances?" In fact, he recalls that that it had taken them more than an hour to travel from the Fire House to the manhole. He wonders whether the Anorak might not be able to keep Cry on his shoulders for that long. If that becomes the case, it is doubtful that Vegas or Tesla could take over from him. Barbetta just might though, but if she had spent most of her energy swinging her sledgehammer, then Pewdie would be the only candidate left.

"Hmm? I'm sure it gets tiring," the Anorak answers him and somewhere, _somewhere_ in that tone of his, Pewdie thinks, assumes, _imagines_ he had just heard – _Of_ course _it gets tiring if you're carrying a full grown man over long distances, Pewdie. Why do you even ask such stupid, obvious questions?_

Oh god. Come on, Pewds, he tells himself. The bastard saved Cry's life. Try to keep your cool now. "What I meant was – you know what? Never mind." He decides that it is better to just shut up in the end. Grudging respect or not, Pewdie knows that he and the Anorak will never get along.

There is a brief silence between them that lasts for a few seconds before the Anorak breaks it. "What _is_ it that you wanted to ask?"

"Why do _you_ care?" Pewdie finds himself snapping.

"You asked me first," the Anorak points out. Then, he adds in a more reasonable tone, "You wondering whether I'll be able to carry Cry all the way? He's not going anywhere, you know. You don't need to feel obliged to carry him too. I can manage this."

How it is that the Anorak seems to know his thoughts is something Pewdie can never figure out. He exhales and for once, tries to stay composed long enough to have one decent, amiable exchange with the other man.

"You used to this?" he asks.

"Used to what?" the Anorak says.

"Carrying people out of danger."

The Anorak cocks his head to the side, as if he is trying to see Pewdie at a better angle. "Oh? Why do you think that?"

Pewdie frowns a little in response. He really doesn't like it when the Anorak gets this way. "You _said_ you've carried people twice your weight."

"Yes I did," the Anorak confirms. "Thing is, the place we were stationed at was a constant danger zone. You could never feel safe. Whenever hell breaks loose, I had to carry people out of there because they got blown up and lost some limbs."

Pewdie fixes him a questioning stare at this and wonders what kind of life the Anorak led before the world they once knew changed. When he mulls over the words in his head, the first thing that comes to mind is the possibility that the Anorak might have military affiliations. After all, he had mentioned being 'stationed at a constant danger zone' that involved explosives and loss of limbs. If that really was the case, then it is understandable how the Anorak had survived this far into the apocalypse.

He contemplates on voicing his speculations aloud for a moment but decides not to do so in the end. The last time he expressed his assumptions to the other man, the response had only succeeded in baffling him and rousing his temper. Trying to maintain his cool around the Anorak is difficult because it is too easy to become aggravated by the other man. If Pewdie tries to ask him about his past, the Anorak might refuse to tell him or mock him for being so curious. Whatever the latter's response may be, Pewdie feels it best not to address the topic, lest it may lead to him losing his composure and starting another pointless argument with the other man.

Sometime later, Vegas startles almost everyone out of their stupor when she exclaims, "I think I see Delta." Immediately, Pewdie turns to look and spots the light of another glow stick, blue in colour this time, suspended in mid-air somewhere ahead of them. He suppresses the urge to laugh at the group's tendency to utilise glow sticks to find each other in the dark. He has to admit though that the items really did come in mighty handy in times of crisis.

Again, they approach the blue beacon of light at a leisurely pace, although Pewdie suspects that it is more to do with exhaustion rather than the sense of no immediate danger nearby. By the time they are metres away within reach of the glow stick, their flashlights pick up the familiar shapes of the fire engine, the telescopic ladder and the wire fence. Pewdie feels a wave of relief at the sight, knowing that they are almost halfway done with their long journey.

The blue glow stick, as they had seen from a distance, is indeed hanging in mid-air, suspended by a string and tied to one of the rungs of the ladder. Sitting underneath it and slumped against the side of the fire engine is Delta, snoring quietly as he clutches a bag that is bursting with items inside with one hand while grasping Vegas's red and black ice axe in the other.

"He's been waiting long," Barbetta remarks.

"Any longer and he'll probably get careless," Vegas grumbles and then goes to crouch before the sleeping figure. She reaches out to lightly smack Delta's cheek a couple of times. "Rise and shine, D."

When Delta continues snoring, she curls her fingers and gives the cheek a hard pinch. Pewdie winces at the sight.

As expected, Delta instantly wakes.

" _Ow_!" he moans and squints through groggy eyes at Vegas, who doesn't let go of his cheek. "What took you guys so long? I'm sore and cold and I just want to get back to the House and quick."

"Why are _you_ in such a hurry?" Vegas asks as she casually pulls her ice axe out of Delta's grip with her free hand, turning it from side to side to inspect for any damage.

"'Cos I'm _pooped,"_ Delta tells her. "Also, my cheek is growing numb. Can you let go now please?"

"You just _like_ using that word," Vegas quips and finally lets go. She automatically takes Delta's hand when the latter holds it out for her and pulls him back onto his feet. Delta stretches his limbs with a groan and rolls his shoulders in an effort to shake off the strain. He then turns to study the rest of the group, his eyes travelling from face to face. When they settle on Cry's limp body and on Pewdie who stands nearby, his face seems to light up, flushing with delight.

"I trust everything went well then?" he says, and when he sweeps his gaze over his teammates for a second time, he lets out a little sigh. " _Man_ , you all look like you could use a breather. You know, we can rest here for a little while. I've checked the perimeter. It's safe for now."

They do just that, relieving the items they are carrying to sit or lean against the fire engine. When the Anorak carefully deposits Cry onto the ground, Pewdie remains close by like a timid ghost, studying Cry's face and taking note of its washed-out appearance. He is startled slightly by a hand landing on his shoulder and Delta suddenly slumping onto the ground next to him, his knee pressing against Pewdie's.

"Aw, man. I _knew_ you two were gonna make it," Delta gushes, his dark eyes sparkling with glee while the cheek that Vegas had pinched shines a rosy pink. "And you did it! You made the whole plan work. Went through a tunnel full of Dead guys, set off them firecrackers, escaped that gunfight on the bridge, got out of there without even getting shot and here you are, still alive and kicking. Heck, you guys are just plain fuckin' _amazing_."

"Uh." Pewdie doesn't know what to say to this at first since the way Delta is staring at him with such open admiration makes his face heat up in embarrassment. The other man just looks so thrilled to find him and Cry alive. In the end, Pewdie lets out a sheepish laugh. "We barely made it out of there in one piece though. I mean, Cry was–" he pauses a little to gesture towards Cry's unconscious figure. "He slipped and fell into the river and–"

"Wait. Cry _fell_ into the river?" Delta cuts into Pewdie's words before glancing over at Cry in disbelief. "He was, like, legit in the water? And he _survived_ that?"

"He's still breathing, alright," Pewdie says, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards.

Delta suddenly scrunches up his face, looking thoughtful. "Does Cry have a thing for ducks?"

Pewdie is taken aback by the irrelevancy of the question. "Um. No, not really."

"You sure?" Delta is unzipping his overstuffed bag to stick one arm into its contents. "I thought he was a duck lover or something. 'Cos I'm pretty sure this thing looks familiar to me." He pulls out something wet and crumpled up and proceeds to shake it back into its original shape. "Does this belong to Cry?"

In his hand is Cry's cap, the fabric frayed around the edges and the rainbow duck insignia discoloured over time.

"Holy fuck," Pewdie takes it from him, turning the still-wet cap in his hands. He cannot describe how shocked and overjoyed he feels right now. "Where did you find this?"

"In the river," Delta supplies with a smile, puffing out his chest importantly. "Fished it out. Thought it was my lucky night. Free stuff floating in the water that was up for grabs, you know? Except that I saw the funky duck and thought of Cry."

Pewdie clutches the cap close to his chest, acknowledging the fact that tonight is definitely one full of close calls, and says softly to Delta, "Thanks, man."

Delta beams at his words. He reaches out and takes the cap from Pewdie's hands, straightening it and dumps it on the latter's head. The cap is still wet but Pewdie doesn't mind it one bit.

It is the beginning of a long, long night when they pack up and resume their journey. Once they venture back into town and huddle together in that same strategic formation, with Delta scurrying across the rooftops as usual, they trudge down the streets together in a slow march. Pewdie can feel the tension in the group's collective silence, knowing that they are all the verge of exhaustion but are also using everything in their power to keep themselves awake and alert. Despite their lack of verbal interaction, the night is far from quiet after all. The thunderstorm had aroused the undead here as well and they can hear their voices and their staggering footsteps in the distance. Pewdie doubts he will be able to fight the creatures in his current state and has a feeling that it might be the same with the others as well. He hopes that Delta might lead them through a route that is safe from any kind of zombie confrontation.

Perhaps it is because of this, the increased activity of the zombies wandering around town, that the walk back to the Fire House takes longer than what Pewdie originally expected. Indeed, it takes them not only down a thankfully empty street, but up fire escape ladders, through back alleys and across buildings. During the couple of occasions when Delta reunites with the team, he advises them to take a short break to catch their breath before climbing back up some time later to lead them through another complicated, zigzagging route.

Pewdie can't quite recall just how he managed to make it through the night with his aching feet. He mostly marches on with the others in a trance, walking where they go and stopping when they stop. Eventually, as they continue forging ahead in weary silence, Pewdie realises that the sky above them had begun to lighten in colour, the blackness of the night fading into a deep blue. He can make out the shapes of buildings now, count their windows, pick out skeletal car frames left to rust on the street, find the bodies sprawled in an alleyway or two. The air is cold in the pre-dawn light and Pewdie finds himself hovering close to the Anorak, for once greedy and desperate to steal someone else's body warmth. Sometime later, he almost crashes into Tesla, who had stopped in front of him, if it hadn't been for Vegas pulling him into a halt. He then realises that the whole group had stopped walking.

No one speaks. Pewdie lifts his head up. The familiar multimedia barrier looms before them, a frightening construction of wood, concrete, metal and wire. He catches a glimpse of Delta disappearing into the wall before a section of it swings open a moment later. They drift into the fire station compound, silent like ghosts. By the time they reach the main building, Doc and Speed are standing by the front door, looking rumpled and unkempt, their eyes red-rimmed from the lack of sleep. Pewdie's heart soars at the sight of them.

"You made it," Doc smiles tiredly.

"You all look like shit," Speed remarks with a yawn but there is no mistaking the contentment in his face for their safe return. He then extracts a stethoscope from his pocket and sweeps his gaze over the lot of them. "Alright then, dudes. Who wants to go first?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [So let's talk about this chapter.]
> 
> This is, by far, the longest one I've written, rocking on 17,578 words, and also my personal favourite. The reason it is my favourite is because there is a lot of interaction not between Pewds and Cry (as there was none here at all), but between Pewds/Cry and the Original Characters. I think it's because I enjoyed fleshing out Vegas, the Anorak and, to some extent, Barbetta a bit more. I liked that Pewds's saddened state and sense of loss entices Vegas to reveal a little bit about herself. I liked Cry feeling compelled to put his trust on the Anorak to get them to safety while the Anorak, in return, does the same by putting his own trust on Cry and his stealth technique. I liked that we see Barbetta, despite her videogame heroine image, actually tires out after using her sledgehammer and does what every amateur person does and should do with a gun - shoot and miss the target. I'd also like to know what your opinions of these guys are after reading this chapter. What do you think of Vegas, the Anorak, Delta, Tesla and Barbetta now?
> 
> Let's talk a little bit about Cry. To be honest, Cry's survival, especially after falling into a fast-flowing river, is actually pretty unrealistic. There should be no way that he'd survive at all. There are number of reasons why he shouldn't and even if he did, he would have broken a number of bones and cut himself from smashing into the debris that should be floating in the water. Unfortunately, I realised my mistake a little too late after I threw Cry into the river last chapter. So I took the easy (and sneaky) way out, saving Cry by using the most unlikely of circumstances just so I could stop him from getting into complications that might lead to a far-too-early death (including catching hypothermia. Which is why I was careful to make the Anorak wrap a space blanket under his wet clothes).
> 
> On the other hand, Pewds does a lot of growing up and gaining new insights in this chapter, the most obvious being that he comes to understand that survival meant letting go and moving on, even if it involves giving up on ever finding Cry and then finding his own path without him. Luckily for him, he gets a second chance when he discovers that Cry has survived the river after all, leading to a rather emotional reunion. This reunion scene was inspired by a similar scene in the latest Studio Ghibli film, 'The Wind Rises', where the protagonist hears news of his wife's illness and basically goes on a mad scramble to get to her, frantically putting on his clothes, slipping and falling as he makes for the door, and then crying silently while he waits impatiently for his train to get to his destination. I thought the scene was marvellous and wanted to achieve the same kind of effect. Here, Pewds becomes so focused on getting to the Anorak and Tesla that he doesn't care that he fell and possibly hurt himself or that he is openly crying as he limps his way to them.
> 
> One other thing I wanted to point out is Pewds finding out their real role in the op - triggering two groups to fight each other - and the fact that this piece of information was concealed from them. Also, from Cry's side, Cry proposes the possibility that Tesla might have known he was going to fall into the river and thus gave him that instruction to not "drop anything". Will there be repercussions from these? If so, what, I wonder?
> 
> Finally, the return of Cry's cap. Oh my god. Here's a secret that I will disclose to you all - I actually *don't* like Cry's cap. I was reluctant to have it in the story in the first place. The only reason it exists was because my Fellow Writer told me to put it in. I informed her that I would find a way to get rid of it in future. "It won't stay with Cry for long!" I had said in the past. "Pretty soon, we're all going to say goodbye to that stupid hat." And for 14 chapters (since the cap made its appearance in Chapter 4), that cap still stayed intact and still stayed around. In this chapter, I was finally provided with a grand opportunity to finally get rid of the damn thing only to bring it back again. I don't even know why I brought it back since my opinion of it hasn't changed(!) Ugh. Better luck next time.
> 
> I'm aware I posted this up so late in the month and I really apologise for that. I thank you so much for being so wonderfully patient and understanding of my situation so I hope you enjoyed this extra-long and rather intense chapter after I spent three weeks tackling it. (To CarlaParkByun, thank you for your apology if you happened to miss my acknowledgement of it. I hope this chapter satisfies you). 
> 
> As usual, feedback - reviews, comments, kudos, even a 'hello' - are always appreciated. I would love to know what you think of this chapter. Tootles.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to every single one of you wonderful, supportive readers who have read, commented, drawn fanart and waited so long and patiently for this update. I'm a little rusty so I hope this doesn't disappoint.
> 
> (Special thanks to **suikalopolis** for without you, this project wouldn't have existed).

**20.**

Cry wakes up to pain, to a soreness that seeps from aching muscles into stiff bones. His fingers twitch, recognising fabric, bed sheets made damp by the perspiration seeping out of his skin. His joints ache when he tries to move. His thoughts are momentarily disoriented. Where am I? Where am I?

There is only darkness when he opens his eyes. Darkness, and then he starts to make out sounds. Shuffling, harried footsteps, repeating in a cycle, moving from one end of the floor to the other. Then a sniffle, followed by shaky, ragged breathing. The rustling of clothes. Then more pacing, spelling out a rhythm of distress. What is that? Who is that? Cry tries to move his head to the sounds and the muscles in his neck protest. He sucks in a breath. His throat is dry like bone.

“ _Where’s_...?” He manages a breathy whisper. His thoughts cast him back to the last time he saw Pewdie at the bridge. Oh god, let him be alive. “ _Where’s_... _Pew_ –”

Somewhere in that darkness, someone startles and curses. The pacing footsteps suddenly begin shuffling away. A moment later, fluorescent white lights flood the room. Cry flinches, squeezing his eyes shut from the sudden brightness.

“ _Argh_ –!” He has no idea that he had moved his arm up to block the light from his face until he feels a hand take his own.

“ _Geez_. You fucking _scared_ me!” cries a familiar voice and Cry almost melts with relief. Pewdie is _alive_! Pewdie is _okay_! Thank _god._ He tries squeezing the hand that is holding his own but can’t. When Pewdie’s blurry face comes into view, he squints and tries to get his vision into focus but everything continues to look unclear. He isn’t wearing his glasses.

“Sorry,” Cry apologises with a weak smile, his heart feeling light and elated with joy. He really wants to squeeze Pewdie’s hand, wants to reach up and embrace him tightly, or pat his face and tell him how glad he is to find the other man alive – but he doesn’t have the strength to do any of these things. “Sorry about the river,” he continues instead. “About scaring you back there.”

Pewdie frowns at him – and Cry can just make out the other man’s sleep-mussed, untidy hair, the swelling purple bruise on his cheek and the scratches on his neck which had visibly darkened in colour. “What? No, _no_ ,” Pewdie is saying dismissingly. “Wasn’t talking about that. I mean, you fucking scared me when you called out my _name_ , man. You called my name in the _dark._ It was so creepy. Like a ghost or something. Did you even hear yourself? No?” He then proceeds to imitate Cry’s whisper in a raspy, grisly voice: “ _Where’s...? Where’s Pewwwdie...?_ ”

Cry gives him a long suffering stare, feeling slightly irked at the way Pewdie is mocking him. “You asshole,” he deadpans but inside, he is smiling.

Pewdie breaks into a grin following that remark. He then leans back a little to study Cry’s face for a moment. “Fucking hell, man. ‘M glad you finally woke up. Was starting to get a little worried there.” Even without Cry’s glasses, there is no mistaking the obvious relief on the other man’s face, the way his eyes are wide and glowing.

“What the hell happened to you?” Cry rasps. “Did you fall? Did the river–?”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Pewdie reassures with a shake of his head. “Vegas found me and helped me off the bridge. Got us out of that power plant. We tried looking for you afterwards. Followed the river. I thought...” His grin suddenly drops a little. “... _Fuck,_ I thought you didn’t make it.”

The look on Pewdie’s face after that is harrowing and Cry can just imagine the kind of sorrow that the other man must have gone through following his fall into the river. He sighs dejectedly. “Me too.”

“Oh, but then you _did,_ ” Pewdie points out and the relief is back on his face again. “You made it, man. You actually made it. The Anorak, he said he pulled you out in time. You lost consciousness once we caught up with you guys. I was so fucking happy to find you alive.”

Something pleasant and warm blooms in Cry’s chest at the sincerity in Pewdie’s words. He smiles at the feeling. “Hey, you’re not looking too bad yourself, you know. How’s the face? Is that going to fade away anytime soon?” He motions towards the bruise on Pewdie’s cheek with a nod of his head.

“Oh, it’s healing okay. Won’t be long until I regain my fabulous, flawless complexion.”

“You know what? On second thought, I think you look better with that shiner on.”

Pewdie laughs. “Shut up, man.”

Cry doesn’t notice just how warm his hand had become until Pewdie gives it a squeeze and gently lets go of it. “Anyway, how’re you feeling?” the other man asks and Cry notices for the first time that the hoarseness in his voice is still there. His gaze flicks to the marks on Pewdie’s neck.

“Tired,” he replies distractedly. “Exhausted. Worn-out. Pooped. All of the above.” He then tries to move his body again and almost hisses when it punishes him by sending bursts of pain to his muscles and joints. “ _God,_ everything just _hurts_. I feel like I’d been chewed on and spat out by a water monster.”

A moment later, he asks while eyeing the abrasions on Pewdie’s neck, “Hey, how’s your...?”

“Oh this? Uh, yeah. It’s getting better as well,” Pewdie answers dismissingly after noticing Cry’s stare. “I mean, Speed had a look at it. We do regular checks every now and then; important to look for any changes and all that. But, you know, don’t worry about it. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. Really, I’m... I’m gonna be _fine_.”

There is something off about the way he says those lines, as if he is desperately convincing himself that he is going to be alright. It is enough to set alarm bells off in Cry’s head.

“Pewds?” Cry tries to reach for him, despite the soreness in his muscles.

“Whoa, hey, you shouldn’t try to move,” Pewdie scolds lightly with a shake of his head. “You know what I mean? You fell into a river and you’re lucky you got out of there alive. You didn’t even break a single fucking bone in your body, you know that? Just bruises and scratches here and there. Still, just take it easy, okay? You hungry? Thirsty? Here.” He holds up a water bottle and Cry is grateful when the other man helps him take a few mouthfuls to moisten his dry throat.

When Pewdie settles him back onto the pillow, Cry asks, “How long have I been out this time?”

“A little over two days,” the other man tells him. “Give or take a couple of hours.”

Cry raises his eyebrows. “Two days?” he murmurs. Glancing around, he finally realises that he isn’t looking at his usual view of the ceiling, despite how blurry everything is. He is staring at the underside of a bunk bed – his own. Whoever had hauled him into Pewdie’s bottom bunk thought it more convenient to put his unconscious body here rather than risk climbing up the ladder.

“Don’t worry,” Pewdie says, motioning towards the door. “You’re not the only one who’s recovering. Almost everyone is. It was a long night for us, trying to get back here from that power plant. We nabbed a bunch of stuff. Lots of food and medical supplies. And at the right time too. Vegas has been feeling sick lately. Think she might have caught a bug or something. Doc wasn’t happy when he found out she’d brought her gun, especially when Barbetta used it to shoot down a zombie.”

‘Shoot down a zombie’? “Oh. You ran into zombies too?” Cry asks with interest.

“Sort of.” Pewdie says, nodding. “I know the Anorak told us how you walked him through that zombie mob.”

“Did he? Well, those things were fucking scary. More aggressive than the ones we’re used to. The others said it was because of the storm.”

“So much loud noise excites them, right?”

Cry nods. “Exactly. Don’t know how the fuck we made it through all that. I honestly thought we were done for. But we got lucky and escaped. Once we found Tesla, I was too tired to stay conscious. I think I blacked out. What about you? What happened to you?”

Pewdie’s eyebrows furrow a little in thought. “Like I said,” he begins. “Vegas got me out. We tried looking for you downriver. Couldn’t find you. We had to go and regroup. And then–” He turns his head to look straight into Cry’s eyes. “Did you know we were supposed to start that fight?”

Cry blinks and squints, trying to see Pewdie’s face clearly. He can’t tell what the other man’s expression looks like. “What fight?” he asks.

“The gunfight,” Pewdie elaborates. “The firecrackers weren’t the ‘distraction’. The firecrackers were an alarm.”

It takes some time for Cry to process Pewdie’s words. “An alarm?” he murmurs thoughtfully. “So those guys that we saw with us were–”

“Uh-huh, bandits.”

“…And the firecrackers–”

“Yeah.”

“…And all along, we were supposed to trigger a fight?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Cry puts all this together, connecting this new piece of information with what he already knows, and starts to see exactly how clever that plan really is. “Oh, fuck. I see. I see how that could all work, I guess.” He then frowns as another thought comes to him. “Why didn’t they just tell us any of this? Or…”

As he continues to mull over this, he begins to see many other things that the group hadn’t told them. Why would they do this? Why would they conceal all these details?

“I confronted Vegas about this,” Pewdie answers Cry’s unspoken question. “She said they never lied about keeping things from us. She said we didn’t need to know everything about the op. Just our job. Just what concerns us."

"Yeah, but, I mean," Cry begins, swallowing. "How can not knowing where we’ll be sneaking into become something that won’t concern us? I mean, of _course_ it does, right? How about Doc or any of the others? Did you ask _them_?”

For once, Pewdie looks a little guilty. “Uh, no. I… didn’t want to make a scene. I didn’t want a confrontation.”

“But you confronted Vegas.”

“I was angry that time, man,” Pewdie’s voice was faint but defensive. “I just saw you fall into the river.”

“I’m... sorry about that.”

“Don’t say sorry. You were only trying to get us out of there.”

Cry is quiet for a moment before he shoots a quick suspicious glance at the door. “Do you think– maybe the others… maybe they might have wanted us killed?” Because this could be a possibility. This could be why the group never told them everything. Perhaps they only saw Pewdie and himself as being dispensable. It didn’t matter if they made it out alive or not as long as Cry and Pewdie played their part and helped make the op work.

He is surprised though when Pewdie shakes his head. “No. No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s it at all. If they wanted us dead, they would’ve just left us. No, Vegas came back to make sure we got out of there – well, she found me anyway. Then the Anorak risked his own life to save you.”

Cry is a little taken aback at how mild Pewdie’s reaction to this concealment is. “Aren’t you taking this too lightly? You’re not… mad at them or anything?” he says. “You _do_ know that they’d deliberately kept info from us like they don’t trust us?”

“Would _you_ trust a bunch of strangers you only knew for a couple of days to follow a plan like this?”

“Well…” Cry wouldn’t. Especially during a time like this when people have become wary of one another.

“Okay, so maybe I _was_ a little mad when I found out,” Pewdie suddenly confesses. “I don’t like being kept in the dark – people not telling me things, or hiding things from me, or me becoming the last person to find out. But when you had time to think about it – to _really_ think about it – it kind of makes sense. Why they did it. So it’s okay to let this go.”

“But how _does_ that make sense?”

“Well, for starters, the others would’ve wanted us to do this op _their_ way. If they told us straight-up that we were supposed to start a gunfight, we probably wouldn't have agreed to go along with it. Even if we _had_ agreed, we’d be doubtful. We’d be having second thoughts. We might end up dropping everything and running away. So of course they didn’t tell us everything. They needed to see if we can do our job. If we can be trusted."

Cry can see some kind of reasoning in that. Eventually, he shakes his head. It didn’t matter. He and Pewdie won’t be staying here any longer now that their job was done. “This whole op was just chock-full of dangerous shit, man,” he then comments. “How the hell had we agreed to all of this?”

“Well, we _did_ come out okay, right?” Pewdie points out lightly. “I mean, we made the plan work. We did good in the end.”

“Hm.” Cry stares up at the underside of the top bunk for a moment. He notices that his eyes are beginning to grow tired now from all the squinting. He rubs at them, feeling them sting underneath his eyelids. “Crap. Where are my glasses?”

“Here.” He hears some shuffling and when he lowers his hand, Pewdie leans over and carefully slips his glasses onto his face. He is relieved when his vision immediately sharpens and the world focuses into view.

“It’ll be scary if you lose these,” Pewdie murmurs wistfully as he draws back.

“Hm?”

“You know, your glasses. Imagine walking around out there without them.”

Cry shudders at the thought. “Then let’s not wish for _that_ to ever happen.” He then studies Pewdie for a moment, noticing that the little red dots peppering the whites of his eyes are still there. He wasn’t able to see them before without his glasses.

“Geez, are you gonna be okay?” he exclaims.

Pewdie suddenly tenses. “What are you talking about?” There is an edginess in his voice.

“I mean your eyes, man,” Cry points out, a little perplexed by the sudden guardedness in Pewdie’s tone. “They’re looking a little red. That’s not serious, is it?”

Pewdie relaxes. “Oh. No, no. They don’t hurt or anything. Speed says it’ll probably go in a couple of days. Maybe.”

They fall into a brief silence for a moment before Pewdie breaks it.

“You know, this whole thing,” he begins. "This op thing? To me, everything just kind of feels... almost coincidental, you know? Like Doc and the others sort of expected us to know where to go and that no matter what happens, we're going to make it out of there in one piece."

"What do you mean?" Cry asks.

"I know it sounds kind of stupid," Pewdie says, his expression sheepish. "But it's almost like this was _meant_ to happen; that it doesn't matter if they told us the whole plan or not because in the end, it's all gonna work out. In the end, we... ah, you know what? It _is_ a stupid idea after all. Ignore me."

But it isn't quite a stupid idea. Somewhere in Cry's memory are words which he'd once recalled:

_You were never actually part of the plan. But we will wait for the time to make a suggestion._

_Don't drop anything you have with you. Do you understand?_

Tesla. Everything led back to Tesla. She was the instigator. She had been the one to tell him where to go and what to do. She seemed to have predicted that Cry was going to fall into danger and that one chance of saving him was for Cry to keep hold of all of his possessions. She had been the one who persuaded them, Pewdie and himself, as well as the rest of Doc's group to participate in this op. There was also something about her, something unnatural and unsettling, that drove her to organise these things so that they could play out in a particular way. But why? What were her intentions? What did she want? And most importantly, how did she _know_ all these things?

Unless, unless… of _course_.

“Hey, you okay?” Pewdie is staring at him. He must have seen the look of realisation on Cry’s face. “What is it?”

Cry turns to look at him. “Have you ever spoken to Tesla?” he asks bluntly.

Pewdie’s reaction to the name is instantaneous. Cry had mentioned Tesla’s name to Pewdie before when they were sorting out their misunderstanding a few nights ago. However, that had been in the dark and Cry couldn’t see Pewdie’s face then. Here, under bright fluorescent lights, he catches Pewdie’s changing expression, the slight flinch in his shoulders, the way his eyes dart away from Cry’s.

“You _have_ , haven’t you?” Cry presses.

Pewdie leans back against the wooden structure of the bunk, resigned. “Tesla, she…” he begins slowly, his eyebrows squeezing together as he stares elsewhere instead of at Cry. “Something’s… up with her, man. Something’s wrong with her.”

This was apparently enough to tell Cry that Pewdie also knew about Tesla’s bizarre condition. He and Cry had been keeping their encounters with Tesla to themselves, unsure of whether to share them with one another. Perhaps they’d been waiting for the right time to do so. Perhaps that time is now.

Cry nods in agreement. “Yeah. Tesla – you know that she speaks with two voices?”

“She _acts_ like two people,” Pewdie adds.

“She told me – remember back at that manhole, she was talking to me about something? She told me where to go to put the firecrackers. Told me to find a bridge and cross it. And get this – _she told me not to drop anything_.”

It takes a few seconds for Pewdie to realise what Cry had been hinting at. “Don’t drop…? You mean the… glow stick?” he says in confusion at first. And then, realisation dawns on his expression. His eyes widen. “The _glow stick_.”

“I think she _knew_ ,” Cry murmurs, feeling his chest tingling in wonderment. “Fucking hell. I think she knew about _everything._ Before it happened. She knew I could lock-pick. She knew about the tunnel. She knew _we’re_ the only ones who could go through that tunnel. She knew where to go and where to set off the firecrackers. She knew one of us might fall into the river or get lost in the dark or something so that’s why she told us not to lose anything. She knew those glow sticks were gonna save us.”

“But that’s not possible,” Pewdie says, looking incredulous.

“No, think about it. How can she know, right? Unless she predicted it or something. I mean, I may or may not believe in stuff like this but it’s not impossible. Not really. There _are_ some things you can’t explain and all, like whether ghosts actually exist and shit. But Tesla… Tesla might be _psychic_ , Pewds. Maybe she can see into the future!”

All throughout this explanation, Pewdie’s incredulous expression maintains until it finally matures into a look of scepticism. He lets out a sigh.

“I don’t think that’s it, Cry,” he says quietly. “I’m not saying that psychics don’t exist or whatever. This is a different thing. Don’t you see? It’s pretty obvious what Tesla is. She’s…” Pewdie pauses as if trying to find the right word. “She’s crazy. She’s not right in the head. There’s something _wrong_ with her. Something _went_ wrong with her. Whatever it is, it made her go _mad_.”

Cry falters, astonished at the fact that he never once thought of that possibility. “But–”

“ _Why_ do you think she talks in two voices?” Pewdie cuts in, his body becoming rigid. “Has she ever talked to _you_ with them both? Or did you hear her talk only to herself?” The other man’s voice is growing noticeably strained with every word. There is also something in his eyes that Cry can’t quite understand. Pewdie seems especially bothered by Tesla’s condition.

“She talks to herself,” Pewdie continues to say, his tone now fervent, almost desperate. “No one… no sane person _does_ that. They don’t suddenly become someone else. They don’t change their voice. They don’t stop acting like themselves. They’re different; we’re not like them. We’re not like them at all. Something went _wrong_ with them. Don’t you see?”

When Cry continues to be unconvinced, Pewdie goes on. “The other day, when I talked to her, she had that notebook with her, remember that? The one she always reads to herself? I saw what was in it. There was _nothing._ Nothing was written on it, Cry. She was reading from a blank notebook. A-And the iPod? I bet you it’s dead too. No batteries. But she keeps her earphones on like she’s listening to something but there’s nothing playing in her ears. Why _is_ that, you think?”

When Cry thinks about it, Pewdie’s explanation does begin to make sense. There might not be anything paranormal about Tesla after all. It seems a lot more plausible if she turned out to have some sort of mental illness. It would explain why she seemed to have two personalities and why she sometimes talked to herself. It would explain why she read from an empty notebook and listened to a dead music player. She was ill. It seemed almost sad that something like this could happen to someone so young. Even so, if it was all true, then to have someone like Tesla managing well throughout this apocalypse was an impressive feat.

One thing still remained though.

“How do you think she knew all that stuff?” Cry points out. “Like how she knows where things are? Like how she anticipated that these things were gonna happen? And that she knew we were both gonna come out of that op okay?”

“I dunno. Maybe she’s just smart?” Pewdie suggests.

“Smart?”

“I mean, gifted-smart. She thinks a lot quicker than any of us. She thinks really far ahead. You know, those kinds of people – they weigh every possibility in their mind and anticipate all obstacles and problems. Then they think of ways to get out of them. Maybe Tesla knew where things were because she’d been to this place before or something. Whatever she says may sound like a prediction, like she can see what’s going to happen in the future, but in fact it isn’t. It’s just… thinking ahead. She could just be super-gifted-smart to the point of… you know, being crazy.”

Cry tries evaluating that suggestion. It sounds just as preposterous as his own ‘psychic’ idea. “Is that even possible? Do you think Doc and the others know about her?”

“They _must_ have known,” Pewdie reasons. “ _Surely_ Doc and the others must know about Tesla, right? I don’t think you can live in the same space with her without finding out eventually. The others just don’t talk about it. But the fact that Tesla was the one who suggested we get involved in this op without fucking up and getting out alive? I think the others knew what she could do so they went along with it.”

“You really think that?” Cry says.

Pewdie sighs, shrugging his shoulders. “I dunno what I think. Maybe? I never asked them and they never mentioned it either.”

“She must have a lot of faith in us,” Cry then murmurs. “Tesla, I mean. Wouldn’t blame her. Or the others for that. We _have_ been _unbelievably_ lucky so far, getting out of scrapes like that.”

He and Pewdie soon fall into another silence, this time contemplative. Cry cannot get the image of Tesla’s face changing from one personality to another out of his mind. “I wonder if she’s always been this way,” he wonders aloud.

Pewdie glances at him, catching his eye. “I’m getting bad vibes from her, Cry. We should probably be careful.”

“I… guess,” Cry nods slowly. “We do owe her something though. I mean, if she hadn’t told us her piece of advice, I’d probably be floating at the bottom of the river somewhere. It’s nice to know she doesn’t really want us dead, that she thinks we’re gonna make it.”

Cry manages to catch the twitch in Pewdie’s lips, the upturn curl at the corner of his mouth. Pewdie had been about to smile at Cry’s remark. “What?” Cry decides to address it.

The other man looks away sheepishly. “Nothin’. It’s just that… Delta said something similar, that’s all. No biggie. Wasn’t laughing or anything.”

“Right…” Cry decides to leave it, thinking it might not be that important. Afterwards, he glances at the boarded-up window of their room and is relieved to find his shovel placed against the wall there. “Hey, what time is it?”

“No idea,” Pewdie replies. “Still dark out though. Some people are awake, some people might not be. Who knows? What do _you_ wanna do?”

Cry tries to move his body again but his exhaustion continues to pin him firmly to the bed. He doesn’t think he can get up right now. Besides, he should let Pewdie sleep. He probably had been keeping vigilant by Cry’s bedside all this time, pacing back and forth as he waited for him to wake up–

 _No_ , hold the phone. That wasn’t right. Something didn’t seem to add up. Pewdie had been pacing in _darkness_. He hadn’t been waiting for Cry to wake up. No, he seemed preoccupied by something else, not Cry. His steps had been quick, agitated, _distressed_. There had been a tension in the air that Cry failed to recognise when he first emerged from sleep. Something was troubling Pewdie.

“You okay?” Cry asks Pewdie who, at first, stares at him, puzzled.

“Uh… yeah?” Pewdie answers.

“No, I mean. You… you were already awake when I woke up,” Cry elaborates further, watching the other man carefully. “You were pacing the floor. You seemed… worried or something. Are you okay?”

To his surprise, Pewdie lets out a laugh. It is dry and self-deprecating in nature. “Hey, don’t you worry about me. I’m peachy. Just… I couldn’t sleep, that’s all. I get headaches sometimes. I get up and try to walk off my insomnia or whatever.”

“Do you… wanna talk about it?”

This was certainly something Pewdie hadn’t expected Cry to say because his face pales a little. “…What?”

“If you’re pacing around, you’re obviously thinking about a lot of things,” Cry explains in a matter-of-factly tone. “Your mind is too active and your thoughts are keeping you up. Do you want to talk about it?”

Pewdie is staring at him, speechless, but Cry can see that he is hesitating, trying to weigh his options, trying to decide whether he should take the offer or not. The more time passes though, the more it begins to dawn on Cry that whatever is troubling Pewdie must be something very serious.

“Pewds–” Cry begins, alarmed.

“I’ll be okay, thanks,” Pewdie cuts in and he is smiling. “I mean, we already talked, right? That should’ve helped drive away that annoying insomnia for a while. Don’t worry about me, man. You get some rest. You get well.”

“ _Pewds,_ ” Cry says, pinning him with a stare. Something is off about Pewdie. From the nature of his laugh to his gentle rejection, Pewdie is obviously trying to throw him off the issue.

“Oh seriously, Cry,” Pewdie is laughing again but this time, it sounds cheery and light-hearted. “We both went through some shit in that op. The important thing right now is to recover from it, okay? Don’t dwell on it, bro. We’ve got to stay strong. We just focus on getting better. Be ourselves again – remember what we are? The undefeatable Awesome Ninja Stealth team!”

Cry can’t help but laugh at the name. Pewdie’s cheerfulness is contagious. Just like that, his concern for whatever is troubling the other man dissipates for a moment. “Okay, okay,” he chuckles heartily. “Recovery first. Get better. Got it.”

“ _There_ we go!” Pewdie reaches out and lightly smacks Cry’s arm. It was a mistake, of course, because Cry flinches in pain. Pewdie starts, realising what he’d done, makes an apologetic noise and proceeds to rub the inflicted area. “He-heh… sorry ‘bout that.”

Once Pewdie shuts off the lights and climbs up the bunk ladder, muttering a “Night” to Cry during his ascent, Cry lies there in the dark, trying to will away the lingering pain on his arm. The issue of Pewdie’s supposed insomnia returns to him and he cannot help but contemplate over it.

Something was troubling Pewdie and Pewdie had been clever to avert his suspicions for a moment. It seemed unnatural for the other man to conceal something from him. So far, Pewdie had been generally open about his thoughts and feelings. To have him do something like this was indeed a cause for alarm.

Cry wanted to press it, wanted to push Pewdie into telling him, but he knew how imposing that method could be. Perhaps this was not the right time. Cry needed to wait awhile. Perhaps on a good day, he can find a way to make Pewdie tell him what was wrong. Perhaps on a good day, Pewdie might choose to tell him himself. Cry needn’t worry too much for now. He was willing to wait.

It takes him another day to recover some of his strength. Soon, he feels strong enough to lift himself from the bed and stand on wobbly legs. His body is still sore and his muscles are heavy but Cry is already sick of being confined to the bunk all day. When Pewdie enters their room and finds him sitting up, boots on and looking ready to go, the other man raises an eyebrow at him in surprise.

“You sure?” he says simply.

“Just get me out of this room,” Cry huffs, pushing himself up onto his feet, ignoring the ache all over his body. For the first time ever, he decides to not to bring his shovel with him. He doubts he will be able to carry it on his back in his current condition.

“Can you walk?” Pewdie says.

“Of course I can,” Cry replies and takes a few steps to the door, ignoring the pain in his muscles every time he moves. His whole body feels like one giant bruise. Pewdie sidles next to him and together, they make their way down the hallway and into the lounge and kitchen area.

The first thing that greets him when they enter is a sudden silence. Then, Delta’s voice shatters it:

“Hey! Look who’s finally awake!”

A few steps into the area has him surrounded by the group. Vegas and Delta are grinning at him – Delta more so than the other as Vegas looks uncharacteristically tired today. Speed had reached out a hand to pat him on the shoulder, Doc is smiling in mild delight and Barbetta gives him an acknowledging nod. Cry manages to catch a glimpse of the Anorak for a second amidst this crowd when Delta suddenly steps into his personal space and asks him: “So, how does it feel to get pulled out of that river, eh?”

“I wouldn’t know, man. Blacked out,” Cry tells Delta. He can’t help but smile at the other man for Delta looked so utterly delighted to see him.

“Nice to see you up and about,” Vegas comments faintly behind them. “Pewdie here was gettin’ a little worried.”

“How are you feeling?” Speed asks and he reaches out again to place a large palm on Cry’s forehead. Cry can’t help fidgeting under Speed’s constant touching. He is even more displeased when he suddenly realises that some of Pewdie’s recent habits – the random shoulder smacking, for instance – had been influenced by Speed’s own.

“Sore,” Cry tells him truthfully once Speed takes his hand away. “Just really sore.”

“That’ll be the bruising,” Delta comments conversationally. “Hey, you don’t feel sick or nauseous sometimes, do you? I don’t know what’s up with everyone lately. Vegas and Pewdie have been throwing up a lot these days.”

“Come on, man–” Cry does not expect Pewdie to protest following that reveal.

“I _don’t_ throw up a lot. Ugh, he doesn’t even need to _know_ that,” Vegas scolds irritably, seizing Delta by the arm and pulling him away from Cry. “Come on. Let Speedy do his job and you do yours. That food ain’t going to heat itself.”

“Oh yeah. We got a load of canned food now,” Delta reports to Cry as he is slowly being dragged towards the kitchen area. “Do SpaghettiOs work for you?”

“Uh, sure,” Cry calls after him in amusement. He wouldn’t mind any kind of food. He only just realised how hungry he was.  

“So?” Speed says, a wide grin peeking out of his bushy beard. He suddenly pulls out a stethoscope from a pocket. “Will you let me check you up?

Cry lets himself be subjected to a series of questions and some quick examinations after that. Like Pewdie said, he had not sustained any major injuries after his fall but did, however, suffer a very mild case of hypothermia after they got back to the Fire House. This was thankfully cleared up in a couple of hours while he was unconscious. (“We had to use every towel and blanket we can find to warm you up,” Speed tells him). There was also, of course, the new collection of bruises all over his body. Speed reassures him though that these will fade away over time.

While he is undergoing these examinations, Cry’s eyes wander around to find Pewdie currently exchanging words with Doc and Barbetta – or rather, he is speaking while the other two are listening to him. Doc’s expression is open and attentive while Barbetta’s is emotionless as usual. There is something about this image that seems to bother Cry. He frowns a little, examining the scene more, but is still unable to understand why.

By the time Speed finishes his examination, Pewdie had ended his exchange with Doc and Barbetta and had settled next to him.

“You dudes,” Speed then murmurs, shaking his head with a smile of bewilderment as he looks from Cry to Pewdie and back. “Got the luck of the devil. How many times did you escape death again?”

“Hey. Don’t jinx it, man,” Pewdie mutters, playfully nudging the other man with the back of his hand. Cry can’t help noticing the gesture.

“I’m not jinxing you. Count that as blessing,” Speed replies heartily. “Oh, come on. You worry too much, Pewds. Relax, bro.” He returns the nudge, knuckles bumping against Pewdie’s wrist.

“Oh, why don’t _you_ relax? _Bro_.”

“Ho _ho_ , I’m as relaxed as I’ve ever been. Which reminds me, Pewds. Are you still having n–?”

“Oi!” Vegas calls, sounding irritated and weary. “Didn’t hear us the first time? Yeah, I’m talking to you three. Get over here and eat!”

Meal time is a quick affair – a flurry of mild complaints and mindless chatter as Cry, Pewdie and the group minus Tesla, whose absence Cry notes must be due to Watch duty, eat their bowls of heated SpaghettiOs and soup. Strangely, there is little talk about the events of the op and more about the growing numbers of zombies wandering the streets day by day.

“It must really be true then,” Doc comments. “The thunderstorm drew many of them outside.”

“That just means we need to keep a constant eye out for them,” Vegas says. She had finished her second helping of SpaghettiOs, all while leaving her bowl of soup neglected at the side. “Longer hours of Watch duty.”

“We can always smash ‘em if they get too close,” Delta suggests. “At least that’ll kill some of the boredom of the week. Hey ‘Betta, you against me come next opportunity?”

Barbetta’s answer is simply a look that answers her question. _Of course._

“Anorak?”

The Anorak had spoken very little during the conversation. Cry had not been sure how he should react when they came face-to-face so he spent most of the time during the meal avoiding the other man’s gaze. At the sound of his name though, the Anorak lifts his head and, for a split second, his multi-coloured eyes flick past Cry’s before landing on Delta. “We’ll see, shall we?”

“Vegas?” Delta says.

“You kids have fun,” Vegas waves a lazy hand. “Unless I get to use the gun, I’m not up for dead people bashing.”

Meal time ends but the talk continues on as some of the group disperse to different areas of the lounge. Cry, with a determination to do some sort of activity after days of bed rest, stays behind to help clean the dishes with Delta and Pewdie. Vegas, surprisingly, is still hungry and is opening up a new can of SpaghettiOs.

“Don’t mind me,” she murmurs, tossing the lid away.

“You’re gonna eat _again_?” Delta exclaims. “Isn’t this, like, your third can or something? You already ate one while we were heating up all the others!”

“Well, I’m still hungry, D. Get off my case,” Vegas shrugs nonchalantly.

“You didn’t even touch your soup.”

“That stuff smells _gross_.”

“It’s chicken soup.”

“I don’t care. Now, get off my case.”

“You’re gonna get sick again,” Delta calls after her as she steps out of the kitchen area, clutching her can.

“I don’t _care,_ ” Vegas sing-songs and is soon out of earshot.

Delta watches after her, a frown on his face. “At this rate, she’s gonna end up eating all our stock. I don’t know what’s up with her lately. Can you believe she finished off one tub of red bean paste yesterday? Not as a filing or a spread or anything. _Just_ the paste.”

“I didn’t know she likes red bean that much,” Cry answers Delta’s expectant look on him. Pewdie just shrugs.

“Me either,” Delta murmurs.

“Look on the bright side,” the Anorak had just stepped into the mini-kitchen, joining their circle. “At least Speed won’t be complaining about having red bean in his food.”

“Are we going to have this argument again?” Delta groans. “Listen carefully, everyone – red bean is the _best_.”

Cry almost startles when Pewdie suddenly squeezes his elbow for attention. He turns, finding the other man ducking his head to speak quietly to him. “Hey, I’m going to talk to Speed for a while, okay?”

“What?” Cry says dumbly, blinking at him.

“You’ll be okay?” Pewdie doesn’t bother repeating himself. “I mean, are you tired? I can take you back to the room if you want.”

“Uh, no. ‘M not tired.” He actually feels a little drained and wants to sit down but Cry can’t bear the thought of going back to bed right now.

“Alright.” Pewdie lets go of his elbow and brushes past him. For a moment, Cry thinks he understands why Pewdie seems to be in a hurry to leave. He only started acting this way because of the Anorak’s arrival after all. Perhaps Pewdie cannot stand being in the same space with him, given their unfriendly relationship.

But Cry is surprised when he sees Pewdie and the Anorak lock gazes for a second. Then Pewdie gives him a small acknowledging nod before leaving the kitchen area entirely. Cry watches him go, a little perplexed by the sudden change in behaviour between the two.

“Cry.” At the sound of his gravelly voice, Cry finds himself turning and looking up to meet the Anorak’s watchful gaze. The Anorak himself is standing languidly on the spot, hands in the pockets of his hoodie. He is watching Cry expectedly, as if he is waiting for him to do something.

“Yeah?” Cry says before he suddenly realises that this was the man who had pulled him out of the river and whom Pewdie must have felt grateful to. _Now_ he understands why the other man seems less antagonistic towards the Anorak. Cry relaxes a little, feeling a sense of newfound respect for the Anorak at what he had done for Pewdie and himself.

“I’m doing okay, in case you’re wondering,” he informs the Anorak because he feels that he owes him this explanation. He scratches his neck nervously, not wanting to sound awkward. “Look, I… I want to thank you. For saving my life. I… we appreciate it.”

The Anorak’s lips curl upwards and he leans down, his face close to Cry’s. His eyes look as mesmerising as ever. “Thank _you_ ,” he replies and doesn’t say anything further. There is no need to. Cry already knows why.

Unfortunately, Delta had been listening to their exchange and hadn’t understood what the Anorak was thanking Cry for. “Hey. What did Cry do?” he asks. “Did he save your life too? Did you not tell us something? I thought you gave us the whole story.”

“You know every detail already,” the Anorak replies in a matter-of-factly tone, drawing back to look at the other man. “What _had_ Cry and I been doing before we caught up with you?”

“Zombies,” Delta immediately says and then, realisation dawns on him. He turns to Cry, wide-eyed and excited. “You taught the Anorak your ninja-stealth skills! Of _course_ that was how you shimmied your way through those dead zees. I wouldn’t know much. I mean, I keep my feet off the ground most of the time so... how did it feel like? Being in the middle of that crazy mob, surrounded on all sides?”

Cry wants to tell him that it felt terrifying, that he had been constantly worried that the zombies would see through their illusion and devour them, that the Anorak, himself, had been shaking in fear as he shuffled inch by inch through the deadly crowd, that the tension building as they waited helplessly for the interested zombie party to let them go was _unbearable_.

“It was exactly like stepping on a land mine and waiting for the moment for it to go off,” the Anorak answers smoothly. Cry admits that this is a good way to describe it.

“‘Exactly’?” Delta says. “I don’t know how _that_ would feel like. I’ve never stepped on any land mines in my life.”

The Anorak’s gaze is unwavering. “I have.”

“Huh. I guess I can always imagine,” Delta murmurs thoughtfully and then shudders. “Must’ve been pretty scary. Wouldn’t want to be in that situation, eh? Trapped in the middle of a mob? Sheesh.” Seemingly satisfied by the answer, he turns to resume his dish-washing.

Cry shoots the Anorak a curious look and wonders if what the other man said was true. What on earth was he doing around land mines? What did he do before the zombies came?

“Don’t slack off now,” comes Delta’s voice, reprimanding them both. “I’ve got a pile of bowls here crowding the dish rack.”

They finish fairly quickly, working as a team to clean the kitchen items without much distraction or further petty talk. Once Delta squeezes his shoulder in thanks and Cry steps out of the kitchen area into the lounge, he notices how much heavier his muscles feel and how much he really wants to sit down. Perhaps he had exerted enough energy for today. Besides, when he thinks about the bunk bed now, he yearns to curl into the sheets, if not to sleep then to simply lie there in rest.

Pewdie is still with Speed when Cry spots him and goes to make his way towards them, intending to tell the other man where he is going. The closer he gets to the two, the more he catches bits of their dialogue:

“– could always talk,” Speed is saying.

“Not right now. I don’t want to think about it. I mean, I’m not a kid anymore. I can handle this. That shit’s not real. I know what’s real and what isn’t,” Pewdie replies, scoffing.

“Whatever you say, tough guy.”

“Oh, so you’re saying you don’t believe me.”

“I’m not saying anything. Those are your words, bro.”

“Yeah. Well, _my_ words are better than _your_ words. _Bro_.”

Speed laughs, a hearty laugh that shakes his great shoulders. “You’re hilarious! You make _no_ sense whatsoever!” He moves to sling a hefty arm around Pewdie’s neck when, all of a sudden, Pewdie jerks away, lashing out and knocking away Speed’s arm. The motion had been quick and impulsive, like a knee-jerk reflex.

Astonished, Cry halts to a stop.

“Whoa, sorry, man,” Pewdie quickly apologises to Speed, rubbing the side of his neck and covering the scratch marks there. “I’m ticklish here. _Really_ ticklish.”

“Ah, shit. I’m sorry, dude.” Speed begins, looking suddenly guilty. “That wasn’t because of the–”

“ _Ticklish_ , Speed. I told you I’m really _ticklish_!” Pewdie is laughing as he says this and his tone is light and cheerful. It is identical to the laugh he gave Cry when Cry asked him what was wrong the night before.

“And you didn’t think to tell me that?” Speed seems to accept his explanation and is pouting at him a tad too dramatically. “Unfair, Pewds. After you heal up, we’ll settle the appropriate form of punishment for you and it’s not going to be a fireman’s jacket this time. I now know your weak spot.”

“Oh don’t you fucking dare.” Pewdie holds out a finger in warning, although he is unable to stop himself from grinning as he does so. “I will Chopnese you so fast you won’t even know what’s coming.”

“You talk a big talk, soldier,” Speed rumbles theatrically. “Show me how skilled you are in Chopnese and I’ll believe you. You should shake on it.”

He then holds out a fist instead of an open hand and Pewdie slams it with his own, exclaiming, “Lord Pewdiepie accepts your challenge, bearded peasant!”

Something burns in Cry’s chest at the sight. It is only when he re-enacts the fist bump he had just witnessed the second time in his head does he understand why he feels a sudden urge to punch something.

He and Pewdie hadn’t shared a fist bump in what felt like a long time. Yet, here was Pewdie now, giving something that felt special between the two of them so easily to someone else. In fact, Pewdie had given himself so easily to the group lately – convincing Cry that they needed to join their op, quickly forgiving the group for their partial concealment of said op, getting along so well with most of the others – with Speed, Doc, Barbetta – hell, even the _Anorak_ whom he once hated.

Is Pewdie settling _too_ comfortably at the Fire House – or is Cry perhaps overthinking it?

After all, why _should_ he feel bothered that Speed called Pewdie “Pewds”? Why _should_ he feel bothered just because Pewdie and Speed shared a stupid fist bump? Why _shouldn’t_ Pewdie get along with this group of people, who were generally friendly and willing to share their resources with them, who kept them safe and entertained? If Pewdie wanted some other human contact that wasn’t Cry’s, then why _shouldn’t_ he be allowed that liberty?

If Pewdie wants to be comfortable with this group, then let him be. Cry _is_ overthinking it. It doesn’t mean anything. He and Pewdie will eventually leave like they are supposed to. They have a plan after all. There’s nothing to it. There’s nothing to it.

“Hey Cry.” Cry blinks out of his stupor only to find Pewdie and Speed staring at him, both of them looking worried. “You okay?” Pewdie had been the one speaking. Cry recalls the fist bump again and forcefully swallows down the tightness in his throat.

“Oh no, I mean, yeah, I’m fine,” he tells them and smiles, feeling his face twitch from the effort. His insides are quivering. He wants to leave the room. “Just realised how tired I am. Going to head back to bed.”

“Want me to come with you?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Cry waves a dismissive hand and backs away to the door. “I got this. I can walk. Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you later.”

The moment he slips back into bed, he shuts down everything – the lights, his eyes, his thoughts, and focuses instead on the soreness of his body, hoping that the pain will distract him enough to let him fall to sleep.

It works a little too well. In the gloomy darkness of the room, he feels every ache. His joints creak, sending jolts of pain throughout his muscles. He twists and turns in bed, trying to find a comfortable spot. Sleep eventually comes to him in short sporadic spurts. He finds himself shuffling between slumber and wakefulness.

Sleep. Awake.

Blackness. Something coming down the bunk ladder.

Blackness. Loud, rasping breaths. _Breathe slowly. In and out. Oh god just calm down._

Blackness. Footsteps. Pacing from one end of the room to the other. _Breathe. Just breathe. In, out. Come on, Pewds._

Blackness. Pacing left to right and back. _Calm down. Breathe, one at a time. In, out. Don’t pass out. Breathe._

Wakefulness creeps over Cry like the slow rising sun. As he gradually surfaces from sleep again, he finally realises that the sounds he thinks he is dreaming about are actually _real_. Pewdie is there, pacing in that darkness right now.

What, _again_? Cry lies back and listens to the noises, to the footsteps and the breathing, and is unsure yet of whether he should interfere. But then he thinks about Pewdie and the group, Pewdie and Speed, the distance between Pewdie and himself, the closeness growing between Pewdie and the others. His chest tightens and he relents.

Sitting up, he ignores the pain lancing up his back and says into the darkness: “Alright, I’ll bite. What is it?” because if he does not step in now, if he does not get himself involved, he fears that Pewdie may become lost to him.

Cry hears Pewdie jump. Then a still silence as no one moves.

“I’m not sleep-talking. I’m awake,” Cry calls out, squinting, trying to find Pewdie’s silhouette. He feels around his sheets for his glasses. “I know you’re there, Pewds. Turn on the lights.”

He hears a defeated sigh and more footsteps. The lights then flicker on, flooding the room. Cry squints from the brightness and finds Pewdie by the light switch, looking pale and visibly shaken.

He stares at the other man, alarmed.

“Holy shit.” Cry is out of the bunk and stumbles a little when one of his legs fails to hold itself up. Once he steadies, he rushes towards Pewdie. “What happened?”

“What? N-no,” Pewdie shakes his head, shrinking a little at Cry’s approach. His voice sounds small and faint. “N-nothing happened. Was I being loud? Fuck, sorry I-I woke you up.”

“Pewds, what’s going on?” He reaches to take Pewdie’s wrist. Immediately, he feels the other man try to pull away.

“I-It’s no big deal, man. Nothing that concerns you. G-Go to sleep, Cry.”

“Pewds, you’re _shaking_.” Indeed, Pewdie’s wrist is trembling in his grasp. “Clearly, you’re not okay. Look, you want some water? You probably need it.”

He leads Pewdie back to the bottom bunk and fishes out a bottle of water for the other man to drink. He is relieved when Pewdie’s shaking subsides a little after he gulps down half of the bottle.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Cry says once the other man emerges.

Pewdie smiles, perhaps as an attempt to reassure him, but whatever happened had shaken him badly enough to let Cry see through that weak façade. “Told you already. I-It’s no big deal. Just… I’m having trouble sleeping, is all.”

Something clicks in Cry’s mind at the mention of troubled sleep. Of _course._ “Have you been having nightmares?” he asks straightforwardly. He catches Pewdie grimacing at the suggestion. Nightmares it was then. It certainly explained why Pewdie got out of bed and was restlessly pacing around, trying to calm down his current state of distress. It certainly explained why he insisted on not telling Cry anything. Nightmares were personal, something that one is often reluctant to share.

“It’s stupid, okay?” Pewdie mutters, not meeting his eye. “They’re just bad dreams. They’re not – they’re not real, and I know what’s real and what isn’t. So they’re not worth talking or thinking about.”

“What were you dreaming about?” Cry asks.

“Zombie unicorn ponies,” Pewdie answers flatly. “They had monkeys for wings. They were terrifying.”

“ _Pewds.”_

“One of them chewed on my leg and I was just about to turn into one of them.”

“Was it about me?” Cry says and at once, Pewdie stops with his bullshitting. Cry continues, “Were you having nightmares about me?” and his heart feels heavy in his chest all of a sudden.

Pewdie doesn’t move for a while. Then, to Cry’s surprise, his shoulders relax a little and he slowly shakes his head. “No,” he says quietly. “They weren’t about you.”

“Then… what is it?” Cry coaxes. “You gotta tell me, Pewds.”

Pewdie looks conflicted once more. Cry watches him grimace at the air in front of him, the way his hands curl into fists before straightening, the way he keeps swallowing every few seconds. Eventually, he concedes.

“I don’t know if I was dreaming or not just now,” he begins hesitantly, looking at his hands and still avoiding Cry’s gaze. “I can’t really remember. It-It might’ve been the case. Couldn’t recall the details. I just...” his words trail off and he stares blankly at the air before him again.

“You just…?” Cry says once a few seconds pass in silence.

“Sorry.” Pewdie gives a quivery smile. “I – I was sleeping... then I woke up and, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t _breathe_. I thought someone was there, trying to strangle me in my sleep. When I woke up, my... my hands were on my neck. I mean, I – I thought someone was there. I thought someone’s _hands_ were there, trying to choke me. Stop me from breathing. Maybe I was dreaming I – I couldn’t remember. I just wanted them to stop them so I was... I found… I woke up and I was cl-clawing at my own neck. I mean who _does_ that? In their sleep? Who _does_ that in their fucking sleep?”

It is harrowing, watching the smile tremble and collapse on Pewdie’s face, to hear his voice breaking, to see his eyes looking wet and terrified.

“Pewds…” Cry is quiet for a moment, feeling helpless and uncertain of what to do. The little details he observed ever since he woke up have begun to make sense: Pewdie reassuring him, Cry (or was it himself all along?), that he was going to be fine, Pewdie’s stubborn reluctance to talk about his troubles, why he reacted the way he did when Speed tried to put his arm around his neck. Cry feels a wash of sympathy for him and scoots closer until his knee bumps into Pewdie’s.

“Does this happen a lot?” he asks gently.

“No, j-just the dreams,” Pewdie answers, shaking his head. “Always the same one. It’s… tonight’s just got worse.”

“It’s still only a nightmare,” Cry reassures. “And you’re right. It isn’t real. It’s your mind reliving that moment back at the power plant. Don’t…”

He is about to say ‘don’t dwell on it’ but realises that Pewdie had already said this before. The other man had also said that they had to stay strong, that they had to focus on recovering, that they had to be themselves again. Cry begins to see just how much Pewdie had been trying to adhere to his own advice and how much the stress of doing so was getting to him.

“I _know_ ,” Pewdie murmurs despite Cry’s unfinished sentence. He seems to have collected himself a little. “I _know_ I shouldn’t let this get to me. Trauma does all sorts of things to you. Nightmares, headaches, nausea. One time I got dizzy all of a sudden, I threw up my food. Speed told me that those are some of the side-effects of this thing. Told me to take my time dealing with it, that he and the others are there if I need anything.”

The mention of Speed’s name sends Cry into a sudden, irrational fit of jealousy. He manages to staunch it with cold, hard reason though. Cry had been mostly unconscious after the op and it was better that someone had Pewdie’s back when he, himself, was unable to do so. He should be glad that it was Speed, who was a nurse and must have had experience with issues like this, who could walk Pewdie through the recovery process. It was good that Speed extended his support to Pewdie.

“So…” Cry scrabbles for something to say, not wanting to let this rare moment between them turn awkward. “How long have you been... you know, having these nightmares?”

“Since you were out,” Pewdie answers monotonously.

“And you told Speed about this? That you started having nightmares?”

“Uh-hm.”

“Did you ever tell him what they were about?”

“No. But no point hiding though. I think he already knows.”

“Did he tell you how to cope?”

Pewdie attempts another quivery smile. “There were the sleeping pills. Tried that on the first night. Knocked myself out. But it’s not about that though. It’s not just about trying to sleep at night.” He sighs, bending forward, curling into himself a little more. “I get... I keep thinking about... well, I think about it during the day too. It isn’t just at night.”

Of course that would happen. A stressful event like that was something you couldn’t help thinking about constantly. “Have you told Speed that the pills weren’t the answer?”

“Yeah. He understands. He keeps telling me – if I need anything, he and the others are there. A good support system is my best bet, he said. I have to deal with this thing, yes, and yeah I should do it at my own pace. I just shouldn’t deal with it alone.”

That is good advice, Cry is forced to agree. He is relieved that Pewdie understood what was important and what it was he needed to do to get over his trauma. “And… have you spoken with anyone? About what happened?”

Pewdie shakes his head slightly. “Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“What is there to say?” Pewdie has gone back to staring at his hands again. “What is there to talk about?”

Cry is at a loss of what to suggest. He wishes he can do something more to help Pewdie than just offer a listening ear. He reaches out, tentative at first, and then lightly touches Pewdie on the shoulder.

Silence descends between them. Cry thinks about his own near-death escape, about how it felt being tossed around in the roiling river waters, how he had almost come to accept nothingness when his energy was exhausted and he was left floating and ready to come apart. Why wasn’t he having nightmares about this? Why wasn’t he reacting to water the way Pewdie had reacted to other people touching his neck?  

“He... he had one hell of a grip on me,” Pewdie speaks so abruptly that Cry almost startles. Somehow, Pewdie found it in himself to try to talk. “I thought maybe he was going to crush my neck. It hurt. It hurt a _lot._ You wouldn’t believe how much it hurt.”

Silence again. Cry feels that he wants to say something, something reassuring or sympathetic. But words like _I’m sorry this happened to you_ do not seem appropriate right now, not when Pewdie had taken the brave initiative to try talking about his experience. If Cry says something now, it might break the spell. He gently squeezes Pewdie’s shoulder, encouraging him to keep going. He feels ready to give all of himself for Pewdie. Nothing in the world mattered more right now.

Pewdie had stooped even more ever since he started talking, his spine bowed and body small. “It’s awful. It’s so fucking awful, feeling so… so _powerless_. You’re at their mercy. _Completely at their mercy_. They have control over your next breath. They can decide when you die. You can’t stop them. You try to, but you can’t. You don’t have… you’re just so fucking powerless. It’s… it’s _terrifying_ when you realise that.” Pewdie’s voice breaks again, sounding tearful. His stare, however, remains distant and empty. He keeps rubbing the heel of his palm against his chest, over his heart.

Cry feels an ache in his throat that he isn’t sure may be a sign that he is about to cry or scream. “Pewds. Hey,” he says softly. _God,_ he wishes he could do _more_. “You’re okay now. You’re safe. I’ve got you. You shouldn’t… there’s no use beating yourself up over this.”

“I _know_.” The palm rubbing against Pewdie’s chest is distracting and Cry is itching to reach over and pull it away. He sees Pewdie’s stare morph from empty to pained, the skin bunching around his eyes. “I already know that I have to accept that that shit happened to me, yeah. It’s a step to help you move on, yes. I’m not… I’m not a fucking _victim_.” His voice, just like his expression, is pained and sharp, almost viciously so. “I shouldn’t think like that. I shouldn’t think I’d become _broken_ from this. I’m not weak. I shouldn’t be. I’m trying to be strong. But then sometimes, your mind just… _reminds_ you. Something's different. You're not yourself any more. It's like you've lost control over yourself, and it’s fucking hard, trying not to let it get to you when... It’s–”

His body suddenly tenses and the palm-chest rubbing stops. It is only when Cry looks at Pewdie’s now reddened face does he see it. His eyes are tearing up. He is trying hard to keep it together.

“Oh _g_ _od_ …” Pewdie mutters through gritted teeth, reaching up to scrub the tears away before they have a chance to fall. His voice is shaking, rising into a high-pitched sob. “I don’t ever want to feel that way ever again. I don’t _ever_ want to feel that way ever _again_.”

In the silence that follows, Cry feels his own throat aching, his own heart breaking. It was uncomfortable, of course, to watch someone break down in front of you. At the same time though, you could not look or walk away. And you didn’t care to do so either. What mattered was to make them stop hurting. Cry cannot imagine himself feeling what Pewdie felt during that attack - powerless and your self-control taken away from you -  but it was terrible enough that it could reduce Pewdie into this. He wants to go and wrap the other man up in a hug but the memory of him pushing Speed away convinces him not to do so right now. There may be other ways to handle this. Eventually, Cry decides to offer words instead.

“Hey.” He shifts on the bunk, finding a better position to sit so that he can take Pewdie by the shoulders and force him to turn towards him. Pewdie offers little resistance in return. The other man looks exhausted from speaking about his experience. Cry makes sure his grip on his shoulders is firm. “Look at me, Pewds.”

When there is no response, he shakes Pewdie a little and the other man’s gaze rises to finally meet his.

“Listen to me,” Cry says, leaning his face closer and offering the other a small encouraging smile. “You’re gonna be okay. You’ll get through this. You _will._ I’m here for you. I’m always here for you. If you need anything. If you need to talk. Or if you need me to wake you up. I don’t know if I can climb up that ladder in my condition but fuck it, I’ll damn-well give it a try.”

He thinks he sees something brighten behind Pewdie’s otherwise dull, weary gaze.

“I got your back, pal. I won’t let anything happen to you. Hell, I’ll make _sure_ you won’t feel that way ever again.”

Cry can see some life stirring in Pewdie’s eyes now. The other man looks at him for a long while, his gaze searching Cry’s face. Cry almost breaks the stare when it goes on for too long, feeling the heat begin creeping up his cheeks, but he startles when he feels a hand rest over his own, one of the two that is still holding onto Pewdie’s shoulders.

“Thanks,” Pewdie says, squeezing Cry’s hand. His features had softened and the curl in his lips tell Cry how grateful he is. There is something else in his gaze too, something warm and full of fondness.

Cry’s smile widens into something joyful. “Don’t mention it.”

He pulls away his touch when Pewdie does and they both sit back, looking at each other awkwardly now that the moment was over. As seconds pass, Pewdie eventually lowers his gaze to look at his hands again. Cry presses his lips together, trying to think of a way to break this. Is there something he can say?

“Will you be okay?” he tries this instead. Pewdie looks up at the sound of his voice and Cry is relieved to see that he looks better now, albeit very worn-out. All that talking seemed to have drained a lot of his energy.

Pewdie nods silently at him in reply. Then he looks over at the door. “I think I’m gonna go to the kitchen,” he says, his voice quiet and fragile. “Maybe eat something. Or take a walk.”

“Want me to come with you?”

“Oh, no, no. It’s okay. You need rest. I just – I just need some time by myself.”

Cry lets out a quiet sigh of understanding. “Alright.”

He watches Pewdie pull on and lace up his boots, noting the other man’s slow, weary movements. When Pewdie stands up, he turns to Cry. “I, uh, haven’t told Speed any of this...” he says sheepishly. “So, you know. Keep this between us?”

“‘Course. I won’t tell if you don’t want me to.” In reality, Cry is secretly glad that Pewdie chose to disclose this to him and not anyone else. Knowing so gave him some reassurance that Pewdie was still on his side, still on board with him. At least, he hopes that this was enough to ensure that. Isn’t it…?

At once, his uneasy thoughts come back to him – about the comfortable way Pewdie interacts with most of Doc’s group, about the easy camaraderie between Pewdie and Speed, and about how _well_ Pewdie seems to fit into the life here. His chest begins to feel heavy again. Stop it, he tells himself. There’s nothing to it. Don’t even think about it. It’s not – _Stop it._ Nothing’s going to happen.

Cry catches him before he leaves. “Hey Pewds? We… We’re still a team, aren’t we?” What he actually wants to say, though, is – we _are_ still sticking with our plan, right? We _are_ going to leave for the radio tower, aren’t we? You still have my back, don’t you? – But he doesn’t feel confident enough to say so.

Pewdie looks at him strangely. He seems puzzled by the random nature of the question. “Yeah, of course we are,” he replies in a matter-of-factly tone. He then reaches out and weakly smacks Cry on the arm – a gesture that strongly reminded Cry of Speed’s – before leaving the room.

Once Pewdie helpfully switches off the lights and closes the door, the room falls into darkness, leaving Cry with his restless thoughts, his still aching body and a growing uneasiness in his stomach. For the first time ever, he is troubled by the thought that Pewdie had not understood what it was he was really asking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A whole year, huh? I don't know what to say. I'm so, so sorry for such a long wait. It's been a tough time for me. I've been feeling very down throughout that year and it's hard for me to see anything positive these days. A dampened mood does terrible things to one's motivation to write so that partially explains the long hiatus. Nevertheless, I am so, so glad that I finally pushed myself to get this chapter done. What of the chapters in the future you ask? That remains to be seen and unfortunately, like before, updates may take time since my state of being hasn't improved much. 
> 
> That said, I want to thank everyone who has commented - especially those who left messages telling me that even after all this time, they are still thinking of this story and are finding enjoyment from rereading this monster during this horrible year-long hiatus. Your feedback means so, so much to me and I am just blown away by the staggering amount of support that you've written into your comments. So, thank you everyone! Without that support, this story wouldn't have gone this far. (I mean 200,000+ words, holy cow). Without that support, I wouldn't be looking forward to anything much these days. Without your support, I wouldn't have wanted to hold on and fight a little longer just so I could write and finish this story for you all.
> 
> So thank you, truly. Just thank you.
> 
> On to some personal comments on the chapter?
> 
> So this was always going to happen to Pewds. It was important (and painful) for me to make him go through this as I, myself, had gone through the same struggle - the struggle of trying to tell yourself that you aren't broken after something traumatic happens to you, that you shouldn't think yourself as broken, or treat yourself as such. Unlike me though, Pewds already knows what he should do and think so his problem lies in trying to adhere to that. Sometimes it's good to stay strong and try to get back to normal life as soon as possible. Other times, you just need to lower that shield, let reality sink in and have a good, long cry. 
> 
> Speaking of 'cry', Cry, himself, undergoes an emotional ride here as well. Some jealousy, some uneasiness and some dread have surfaced. I won't talk a lot about what he's going through right now since we'll see how it develops in the future. 
> 
> Other new developments: Pewds and Cry finally talk about Tesla. The Anorak reveals something about "landmines". Pewds and Speed exchange fistbumps now. During Cry and Pewds's first dialogue about Tesla, if you'd been reading carefully enough, you would've noticed Cry thinking, "Pewdie seems especially bothered by Tesla's condition", something that only Pewds and us, the readers, already know about. 
> 
> Another thing I might want to clear up is why I chose Pewds to have nightmares about his own near-death experience and not about losing Cry. I felt that because it was a much more direct and raw experience for him, it made more sense for Pewds to be psychologically affected by it and thus, have that become manifested in the form of nightmares. In fact, this is why strangulation is such an awful experience. It leaves both physical and psychological effects on the person affected. And I'm so sorry, Pewds, for putting you through all this. The bad thing about this though is that this, apparently, isn't the worst of it.
> 
> That's it for now. I noticed that this chapter is especially dialogue-heavy but I hope you still enjoyed it after such a long wait. When will the next chapter arrive? Again, I cannot promise regular updates as I once had done before. Just know that, unless I announce it otherwise, I will be sticking to this story for a bit longer - and I hope you will too.
> 
> As always, feedback - comments, reviews, hello-you're-back-hurrahs - are more than welcome. You're all awesome. I love you all and I appreciate all your support. I've missed hearing your thoughts on these monster chapters. Welcome back and I hope to stay long.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all the readers, who have been with me since the beginning, middle and up until now. 
> 
> To the readers who have expressed their excitement, praises and love for the characters, the events of the story, and the writing in these past 20 chapters. 
> 
> To the readers who have affirmed and reaffirmed their support and patience for this fic for the last three to four years.
> 
> This is for you.
> 
>  
> 
> **Thank you for everything.**

**21.**

When Pewdie wakes, he feels disorientated. He feels terror. Feels his heart pounding hard against his chest. He panics, not knowing where he is.

“You alright there?”

A man’s sudden appearance before him makes him shrink into his seat. It takes him a while to realise that the man is Speed. Not a shadow wearing a beanie hat. Not a set of strong fingers that had gripped and squeezed his throat. He forces himself to relax. It’s okay. I’m back. This is the safe house. That was just a dream, just a stupid, harmless dream.

“I-I’m fine. Sorry,” Pewdie reassures a little too breathlessly. He clears his throat and looks around the now-empty infirmary. “Oh, where did everyone go?”

“Finished checking them all,” Speed supplies, looking at him concernedly. “You’re the only one left, dude. Didn’t want to wake you yet ‘cos I thought you needed the rest.”

Despite the short nap, Pewdie still feels the exhaustion of the long night of this op. The op itself took a hell of a beating on him as did the walk back to the Fire House. The period after that – the one he spent fidgeting with restlessness and worry during Cry’s medical examination, especially when Speed identified the former’s mild hypothermia – sapped what was left of everything else. He only found time to sit and breathe easily once Cry was bundled off to Pewdie’s bunk. After that, he had fallen asleep while Speed went to tend everyone else.

He guesses it must be well into the morning because he can see the sunrays peeking through the boarded-up windows of the infirmary. An hour or two must have passed while he was out. Eventually, Pewdie becomes aware that half of his face is smarting and sore. He reaches up to touch his cheek and finds the swollen bruise where he had been punched tender and painful.

“Here.” Pewdie is surprised to find Speed offering him an icepack, similar to the one Cry used many nights before, followed by a bottle of water. The other man grins at him. “I managed to save these for you. I thought you sounded a little raspy there. As for that bruise – someone jumped you?”

“Someone jumped me,” Pewdie confirms in a grumble, gratefully taking the icepack and water bottle.

“You look really tired, dude,” Speed points out, peering at his face. “I heard you and Cry did a great job out there. But damn, you both are in need of a _lot_ of rest. Look at you. I mean, even your eyes are a little bit…” he suddenly stops and squints at him with such intensity that Pewdie becomes uneasy at the other man’s stare. He watches Speed’s gaze drop to his neck, resting there for a moment before darting back up again.

“Oh. Probably should’ve told you earlier,” Pewdie says apologetically. “Someone jumped me _and_ tried to choke me.”

“Tried to strangle you?” Pewdie doesn’t miss the correction as he sees Speed’s eyes harden.

“Hey, I’m okay,” Pewdie quickly counters, nonchalant about it. “I mean, I’m still alive, right? That dude who did this was from that other group. I didn’t see him. He jumped me. Cry came in time to stop him, so it’s all good.” Although the punch to his cheek makes his whole face and neck hurt a bit, he is certain that over time, the pain will fade away and he will heal.

Despite the reassurance, Speed’s expression doesn’t change. He seems to be contemplating on something, not really looking at Pewdie as he does so. Pewdie manages to catch him muttering, “Right. Right. Okay,” under his breath before the other man holds out a tentative hand towards him. “Do you… mind if I take a closer look?”

“Um, okay.” Pewdie tilts his neck up a little and lets the other man examine him, hearing him hum as he peers at him from every angle. At some point, Speed presses the chestpiece of his stethoscope onto Pewdie’s wrist to listen to his pulse.

“Do you feel any pain anywhere? Your neck? Collarbone? Maybe your head?” Speed asks, his voice distant and professional.

“My neck does feel a little sore,” Pewdie replies.

“How about breathing? Any trouble breathing? Or swallowing?”

“Um.” Pewdie takes a couple of experimental breaths and swallows. His throat feels swollen and a little raw. “I’m breathing okay – well, mostly. It hurts a bit when I swallow, like when you have something stuck in your throat.”

Speed moves the stethoscope’s focus onto Pewdie’s chest. “Right. Breathe?” Pewdie inhales and exhales slowly. “Feeling dizzy?” Speed asks afterwards. “Nauseous?”

“No, none at all.” Pewdie’s answer isn’t quite that truthful. Speed’s thorough questions have started making his stomach squirm with nervous butterflies.

“Did you black out at any time on the way here?” Speed continues on.

“No.”

“Do you remember everything that happened? No blanks in your memory or…?”

“Uh, no. Don’t think so.”

“Did you – pardon my saying this – but did you at any point involuntarily lost control of your bladder or bowe–”

“Whoa, _dude_!” Pewdie reels back this time, flushing at the mere suggestion. “No, I-I definitely hadn’t pissed or shit my pants! Okay man, what is this about? Did Delta put you up to this? Because it’s not…” It suddenly occurs to him what Speed has been doing and what it may imply. “Is… is there something wrong with me?”

He expects Speed to scoff and smile and tell him that he is only being systematic like this because that is what nurses do. What he gets though is Speed sighing and answering, “We don’t know yet.”

There is a brief pause as the words sink in.

“I don’t get it,” Pewdie replies because _we don’t know yet_ is not an answer. _We don’t know yet_ is _not_ a fucking answer. His bruised cheek throbs as he grits his teeth. “I’m not gonna _die_ , am I?”

“Hell no, don’t think that!” Speed quickly counters, having noticed Pewdie’s distress. “I’m sorry, Pewds. I should’ve been clearer. I didn’t want to worry you. When I said that we don’t know yet, I actually mean what I say. I _really_ don’t know yet. Sometimes, these kinds of injuries take time to show themselves. You might seem well now, but it’s very likely that strangulation symptoms and aftereffects start showing up much later. We’ll just have to wait and see. Only then can we decide if your attack may have resulted in any serious complications.”

‘These kinds of injuries’? Oh. So he _was_ injured _?_ Pewdie pauses to lick his lips, feeling his stomach continue to squirm unpleasantly. “When you say ‘serious’, what do you mean by it?”

“Well,” Speed says eventually after a hesitant pause and not meeting Pewdie’s eyes. “You know. ‘Serious’ as in internal injuries or long-term damage. Or even psychological symptoms like depression or anxiety. In some cases though and depending on the nature of the injuries, there may also be a delayed fatality.”

 _What?_ “Delayed…?”

Speed shakes his head. “But not likely in your case, though!” he quickly interjects. “I think that sort of thing is more common when there’s a lot more violence involved. No, just… be informed, Pewds. Yes, that’s it. Attacks like these tend to leave marks. You might feel a little out of it for a while. That’s normal. If you feel okay, that’s alright, but don’t think that you’re out of the fire just yet.”

“So you’re saying that there _might_ be something wrong with me,” Pewdie tries to summarise what the other man is saying, and the words come out strange in his mouth. “That this attack may have left marks. That there is a chance that I might not be okay.”

Speed huffs out his cheeks. “Um, yeah. Probably.”

Pewdie falls into silence, letting this all sink in. How can that attack lead to _this_? He had seen movies and TV shows where the characters turned out okay even after undergoing what he had experienced. Why did real life have to be so different? He escaped death for now but why is this not over yet? Why is this happening to _him_?

“Well, the bottom line is,” Speed goes on, still watching Pewdie’s reaction. “Let’s… let’s keep an eye on things, okay? I can’t really make any kind of diagnosis right now, but we’ll take it one step at a time. To do that, it’s important that you check with me regularly. Tell me if you notice any changes. It’ll help me build a picture of your condition. If, you know, anything’s bothering you or if anything comes up, come and see me immediately.” He reaches out and claps a hand on Pewdie’s arm in reassurance before stepping back and heading towards the desk, leaving Pewdie to his thoughts for a moment.

“Hey man,” Pewdie then calls a minute later once he is able to gather some of his composure. He feels strangely numb as he goes to press the melting ice pack in his hand onto his bruised cheek. He notices that the coldness immediately soothes the ache there. “So ... you’ve handled a lot of people who were like me too?”

“Hospital patients, you mean?” Speed rephrases. He is in the middle of scribbling what looks like Pewdie’s symptoms into a notebook.

“Well, uh, yeah.” Pewdie realises that he does not like the word ‘patient’. In fact, he does not like being associated with it either. “You know. People who got strangled.”

Speed straightens up from his notebook, pursing his lips in thought. “I’ve… met quite a few but it was actually my colleagues who treated and took care of them. Poor things were victims of their own households. Usually women and children. I always remember the look in their eyes though – like they lost something. Like they’re broken inside. Whenever we had a chance to chat, I always try to tell them not to think of themselves that way. That they’re gonna be okay.”

He then looks at Pewdie straight in the eye. His voice comes out gentle and nurturing, “ _You_ shouldn’t think that way too, Pewds. Alright?”

Something in Pewdie’s head suddenly clears. “Yeah, I know,” he says firmly and yes, of _course_ Pewdie knows. He had already told himself back at the riverbank that he has to move on and keep going, that survival (and Cry) must be his main priorities. These are the things he is absolutely certain about. Wallowing in negative thoughts will not help. He cannot let them hold him back. Nobody is going to wait for him to get his shit together.

Because of this reason, Pewdie decides not to worry too much about his welfare for now. Whatever kind of complications may rise, he’ll deal with them later. After all, there are other, more essential things to worry about – like Cry not waking up yet and zombies still roaming the streets outside. There was no time to dwell on other things. No, Pewdie shouldn’t be thinking about his attack at the power plant, about being wrestled onto the ground, about the moment he struggled and fought to breathe, about the heavy weight on his body, the hands around his throat, about the–

 _Shit_. Shit–! Pewdie jerks his head to the side, forcing himself to erase his thoughts. He should not think about this right now, should not let his mind linger on that experience and replay it in his head. No, no, Pewdie is _exhausted_. He wanted rest. He wanted sleep and he much preferred it if he could just knock himself out without having memories of that attack become the last thing on his mind.

“You okay?” Speed’s voice cuts through his thoughts.

“What?” Pewdie snaps out of his trance, embarrassed at being caught off-guard and with his mind in a vulnerable place. He forces out a sheepish laugh. “Sorry, yeah. Just super tired. So, we done here, Nurse PJ?”

“ _Nurse_ PJ? Haha! Hadn’t heard anyone call me that in a while. Here, give me a second, Pewds.” Speed smiles, motioning for him to sit comfortably for a moment while he takes out one of the tin boxes that he uses to store the medical supplies. As he digs into the contents, Pewdie catches a glimpse of an assortment of pill and tablet packets. Speed eventually emerges, holding a tube of antiseptic cream in his hand.

“I don’t think I cut myself anywhere,” Pewdie points out as Speed unscrews the cap and squeezes out a small glob of cream onto his finger.

“But you’ve got abrasions – scratches – on your neck,” Speed tells him, making Pewdie startle, horrified. “Oh, you hadn’t realised it yet. Don’t worry, dude. It’s nothing major. Just need to disinfect those and that takes care of that.”

As Pewdie sits still, trying not to wince as Speed dabs cold cream onto his skin, he discreetly inspects his fingernails and sees once more the blood underneath them. He thinks he knows where the abrasions had come from and tries not to think about them too deeply.

“And _now,_ we’re done,” Speed says, stepping back and screwing the cap back on the cream tube. “Just keep that ice on that bruise and the swelling should go down soon. We’d better let you have that well-needed rest.”

“Right,” Pewdie says, standing up and feeling the muscles all over his body ache. He watches Speed put the antiseptic cream back into the tin box before he gets an idea. “Hey, have you got any sleeping pills?”

“Sleeping pills?” Speed absent-mindedly sifts through the packets of pills and tablets for a bit before glancing up at Pewdie. “Are you having some trouble sleeping?”

“Um, no…” The curiosity in Speed’s eyes sets off warning bells in Pewdie’s mind. He doesn’t want to let the other man think he needed sleeping aids because he didn’t want to lie awake in bed, thinking about his stressful experience. “You see, it’s morning now,” he quickly invents. “I may be exhausted as fuck but my body’s gonna think that it should stay awake ‘cos it’s daytime.”

Speed looks uncertain. “I don’t know…”

“Oh come on. Help a bro out, man. I really wanna sleep.” Pewdie puts on his most convincing pleading expression for good measure.

Speed finally yields after a few seconds. “Oh, alright. Normally, I wouldn’t be encouraging this but… just as long as you don’t rely on these too much,” he murmurs as he goes back to his rummaging. In the end, he extracts the correct packet of pills and breaks a section off the blister pack inside. “If you continue to have trouble sleeping and _not_ because you can’t sleep during the day, I want you to tell me about it, alright?”

Pewdie takes the pack and thanks him. After another stream of reassurances that he will definitely come to Speed for regular checkups as well as any sudden discoveries, Pewdie is finally dismissed from the infirmary, ice pack, water bottle and pills in hand.

The first thing he does when he enters his and Cry’s room is to check on the sleeping Cry. The sunlight seeping through the cracks of their boarded-up windows give him enough light to observe the other man in deep slumber, his breathing regular, his expression calm and untroubled. Pewdie spends a few minutes sitting on the bed, pressing the icepack onto his bruised cheek and watching the rise and fall of Cry’s chest.

 _This_ is what matters right now – he reaffirms to himself during his vigil – that Cry is alive and still _here._ Until Cry wakes up, it is crucial that Pewdie regains his strength and recover from whatever condition he is in. He should be okay though, he _has_ to be okay. Maybe Speed is treating his circumstance so seriously because it is a natural thing for him to do. As a former nurse, he needed to be attentive and cautious and treat everything seriously, right? Maybe it won’t turn out that bad. Maybe Pewdie is going to be alright. Cry came in just in time to stop his assailant from causing even more damage. I’m sure this scare will go away sooner than you think, Pewds.

If not, then he would just have to deal with whatever shit comes up tomorrow. Not right now though. God, right now, he just wanted to _rest_.

The pills hurt his throat when he swallows them down. He drinks the remaining water, hoping its cool temperature will lessen the swelling, and afterwards, stares up at the darkened ceiling, trying to find a comfortable spot in Cry’s top bunk. The pills take their time to work and as minutes slowly tick by, Pewdie groans loudly, covering his eyes with crossed arms, wanting to shut everything out for now. Sleep, sleep, _sleep_! Go to sleep. Don’t worry about Cry right now. Don’t think about the op. Don’t think about searching for Cry in the river. And for fuck’s sake, Pewds. Don’t you think about almost dying from not being able to _breathe_.

Eventually, eventually, he sinks into a deep and dreamless sleep without even realising it. The next thing he knows, he is wide awake, sprawled haphazardly across the top bunk, his legs tangled in the sheets. It is very warm in the room. He slowly sits up, rubbing his eyes and flinches as something deep inside his skull clenches in pain. He sways his head experimentally and the pain persists. How long had he been asleep? If he only managed a couple of hours, then it is possible that this headache is a product from his lack of sleep.

Cry is still unconscious when he climbs down. Pewdie pulls half the bedcovers off the other man’s body, not wanting him to overheat. He then leaves the room, wanting a change in scenery, and heads towards the lounge and kitchen area.

The Fire House is quiet as he walks down the hallways. He feels a lazy sort of air, like waking up to a weekend where everyone is still fast asleep after a wild night out. When he reaches his destination, he opens the door to peer inside and sees no one. That is, until a voice suddenly calls out to him: “Oh, hello Pewdie.”

Pewdie jumps, his hand automatically flying to his chest and he feels his heart racing. “ _Geez_ , fu– what… uh, hello?”

“Over here.” Pewdie has to step deeper into the room so that he is able to see a smiling Doc waving at him from behind the kitchen counter. After returning the wave, he makes his way over to the other man and finds him leaning against said counter, spooning mouthfuls of dry cereal from a bowl.

“No milk I’m afraid,” Doc points out, lifting his spoon up for Pewdie to see. “Would you like some food?”

“What–” Pewdie shoots a look at the boarded up windows of the lounge/kitchen. It looks like there is still light outside. “What time of day is this?”

“Around sunset, actually,” Doc replies. “It’s only been six or seven hours since you returned from the op. Everyone is still quite exhausted. I believe some of them came down here for a bit to get something to eat but then went straight back to bed afterwards.” He opens a cabinet and extracts a bowl. “What would _you_ like to eat?”

Pewdie isn’t too picky about food at the moment. “I’ll just have what you’re having.”

“Oh.” Doc’s eyes briefly flick to Pewdie’s neck for a second before averting away. He then speaks in a light tone of politeness, the kind he uses when he doesn’t want to state the obvious. “Actually, this cereal is really dry and quite rough when I swallow it. It’s not very pleasant. Might I recommend something softer for you?”

“Um.” Pewdie is a little surprised that Doc seems to know what happened to him. Did Speed tell him? Nonetheless, to have him be considerate about Pewdie’s food choices was a nice thought though. “Sure. What-what do you have in mind?”

In the end, Pewdie lets Doc convince him to eat a bowl of instant oatmeal (“We may not have milk but we do have a kettle,” Doc had said cheerfully). Pewdie then sits on one of the stools of the counter and eats his tasteless meal but realises that this was a better choice than Doc’s dry cereal. His throat still feels raw and painful when he swallows but not so much that it hinders him from eating.

The peaceful silence between the two of them, broken only by the soft crunches of Doc chewing his cereal, eventually prompts Pewdie to begin chatting. “So did you and Speed stay up all night, waiting for us to come back?”

“Something like that,” Doc easily answers after he pauses for a bit to swallow. “We both waited at the Watch Tower. One of us kept vigilant while the other rested, although Speed didn’t sleep for very long. He always worries whenever the group goes on an op. You can imagine his great relief when you all marched back here, looking very weary but thankfully, very much whole.”

Hearing about Speed’s relief at their safe return somehow inspires Pewdie to think about his own experience – his happy realisation that Cry had been rescued and was safe from the river. He doesn’t know why he suddenly feels like sharing that memory. Perhaps it is because Doc is so easy to talk to which encourages him to do so. Either way, he ends up telling Doc about his and Cry’s adventures, particularly the moment when the latter slipped and fell into the raging current and then the unspeakable joy Pewdie felt when he discovered the unconscious body that the Anorak had been carrying was Cry all along.

“I’m very glad you both survived your ordeals,” Doc is saying, once Pewdie finishes his recollection. “And that you were able to come back mostly unharmed.”

“It was more of a lucky break for us,” Pewdie points out. “I don’t know how we managed to get through that. I mean, we didn’t know half of the plan and that there were bandits on the camp with us. I mean, how should we know that our real job was actually to trigger a fight when you guys never even told–” He cuts off the moment he realises he has said this aloud, and that the only other person whom he confronted about this partial concealment of the op was Vegas. It seemed oddly uncomfortable to bring up such a topic in front of Doc, who was gentle and polite and did not seem the type to conspire or deceive. “Er…”

To his surprise, Doc lets out a defeated sigh. “I suppose you may have questions about that.”

A pause settles in between them at first, but since Doc is explicitly acknowledging the topic, Pewdie decides that he might as well pursue it. He makes an effort not to be confrontational as well, only because Doc actually appears ashamed and apologetic compared to Vegas’s cool indifference the night before. “Maybe I do,” he tells the other man, albeit a little stiffly. “Maybe I wondered why you all didn’t tell us your whole plan.”

“Perhaps,” Doc starts, looking rather sheepish. “Perhaps you might already know the answer – we were afraid you might not agree. I wish we were able to explain to you just how vital your role was in this op, even when it involved a risk, and one that you might not want to take.”

Pewdie pauses to choose his next words. “Still, I mean. It doesn’t hurt to ask us, right?”

“Perhaps we should have,” Doc admits with a small sad smile. “There was some debate over this issue but in the end, some of us decided that, for the sake of the op, it was sufficient that we provide you with simple instructions with little detail to avoid any complications. All in all, please do try to understand our decision. The people you had travelled with last night have much experience in these ops. It may have occurred to them that telling you and Cry every detail may plant seeds of doubt that can lead to a possible collapse of the plan.”

When Pewdie thinks about it, it seems very likely that this may be the case. On the whole though, Doc’s explanation did tally with Vegas’s. Pewdie and Cry were only told _what_ they should do and not _why_ they were doing it. _You didn’t have to do anything that could be any more dangerous than that one simple task,_ Vegas had pointed out. What Vegas failed to acknowledge aloud though was that their task still placed them in great peril. Being stuck in the middle of a gunfight certainly counts as one.

When Pewdie points this out to Doc, the other man hums pensively in response: “We need to understand, though, that in this age, we are all constantly in danger. Every one of us. Any one of us could have died tonight, Pewdie. There are always risks in the things we do, but sometimes there is no choice but to take them if we are to overcome those dangers. In your case, it was unavoidable. Without your involvement, we will be unable to execute the plan this smoothly. Your role was critical. Any mishaps, and we may never get another opportunity like we had last night.”

Doc pauses for a bit, as if to let Pewdie absorb his words before he then continues, his voice becoming gentle: “In spite of this though, the important thing right now is to see how many of us are still standing and be grateful for making it out alive. Wouldn’t you agree so too, Pewdie?”

“I… yeah, I guess you’re right,” Pewdie replies. Indeed, Doc’s remark seems pretty convincing and Pewdie, whether it had been from that reasoning or the soothing and calm quality of Doc’s voice, finds himself conceding to it. He sits back afterwards, much more at ease now in Doc’s presence after that explanation, and goes to finish the last scraps of his oatmeal.

Not long after that, Doc gets up, picking his and Pewdie’s empty bowls and carrying them to the sink. “I’ve got to go back up the Watch Tower,” he then explains. “I’m actually supposed to be on Watch duty right now. No one else could do it because they’re all resting. I came down for a while to eat something. Will you be staying here then?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so.” Pewdie doesn’t feel like going back to his room yet. The lounge and kitchen is a spacious area and he needed that space to think for a while. “Yeah, you go on ahead. Don’t mind me.”

Doc goes to leave but not without a light touch on Pewdie’s shoulder as the former passes him. “Get some rest, Pewdie,” he says kindly. “If there is anything you’d like to share or if you don’t feel so well, please come to any of us.”

Without Doc in the room, the calm and pleasant atmosphere seems absent now, and an emptiness take its place. Pewdie slumps against the counter, sighing, and thinks about what Doc has said. He tries to examine this in an objective light, pictures being in the group’s shoes and having to trust two strangers to risk their lives for a plan like this. He begins to understand why there was a concealment, and decides it best to let any ill feeling go. After all, the deed has been done. It was now water under the bridge. _Be grateful for making it out alive._

He does not know how long he stays there, his face buried in his arms on that counter, but soon, he hears the door of the lounge swing open. Pewdie lifts his head and turns.

“Oh hey!” It is Delta, looking unkempt and tired but still sounding cheerful and very much pleased to see him. “Hi Pewdie. How ya feeling? Cry wake up yet?”

“Not yet,” Pewdie offers a smile and pats the stool next to him invitingly, grateful to have Delta for company right now. At least the other man can help him distract his thoughts for a while – that, as well as the faint throbbing in his skull. “Vegas not with you?” he then points out because it is a bit odd to see one of the pair here and the other nowhere in sight.

“Still in her room,” Delta answers, settling into the offered seat. “She doesn’t want to come here after I told her I was going to cook some food. She says it’s because she can’t stand the smell. Isn’t that weird?”

“What is?”

“You know, V saying she can’t stand the smell,” Delta says, frowning.  He then bends closer to Pewdie, like he is sharing secrets. “I think she’s _ill_ or something because she threw up a few hours ago. And you know what? I blame it on the cans we swiped from the op. We had something to eat before we crashed, right, and I _definitely_ noticed that some of the cans were past their expiration dates…”

“Why did you still eat them then?”

Delta winces, scratching the back of his neck. “Aw, come on. We were really pooped, you know? That walk back here took a lot out of us. It’s weird though because _I_ feel absolutely fine and not sick at all. Maybe I’ve got an iron stomach.”

He then gets up from his stool and makes his way into the mini kitchen, opening a bottom cabinet and dragging out a backpack that is full to the brim. He starts sorting through the items inside, most being cans, packets and boxes of food. “Better check all the expiration dates and throw away the bad stuff. Shouldn’t take too long.”

Indeed, it does not take long at all. By the time it occurs to Pewdie that he should offer help, Delta had already segregated the items into separate piles. The ones that he deemed ‘bad’ were very few – and he carelessly tosses them back into the backpack.

“Right,” Delta says, as he takes the items from the ‘good’ pile and lines them up on the counter. “What should we cook today?”

Sometime later finds Pewdie watching Delta hunched over something that is simmering quietly in a pot. He isn’t sure what it is that the other man is cooking as Delta had improvised the whole thing, selecting a few items from the selection on the counter and a few more from their existing food supply stored in the kitchen. The smells that are coming out of the pot give nothing away. What Pewdie does notice though, is that Delta keeps adding hot water to it.

Delta had been chatting about how he found the route to the edge of town as he lazily stirs the cooking pot, pausing once in a while to dip his finger into the wooden spoon to taste the simmering concoction. “It was really just a coincidence when I came across that fire engine one day,” he is just saying. “I was out on a supply run a few weeks back and what did I find instead? A way over the fence! A way outside town! Was surprised no one’s touched that fire engine yet. It’s in pretty good shape. Also parked really nicely too – you could see everything from there. If you see a zombie mob coming after you from behind the fence, that engine’s your ticket outta here. Grab the keys under the seat, turn the ignition and _zoom_ – off you go.”

Pewdie has been listening to Delta’s chatter and is thinking about the zig-zagging route that the other man had used to take them to that tall wire fence. “Geez, how can you remember your way around the place?” he asks. “The way I see it, it just looks like you’re picking random routes and they all coincidentally end up at the place you want to be.”

“Nah,” laughs Delta as he sprinkles a pinch of salt into the pot and reaches for the kettle to pour another dose of hot water into the mix. “I know my way around because I memorise it. Keep following the same route a couple of times and you eventually know it off by heart.”

“So I guess you wander outside of town often?” Pewdie surmises.

“Outside? _Nah_ , I – oh wait… what?” Strangely enough, Delta looks confused by the simple question.

“I mean, if you remember your way to that fence and that fire engine, you must go there often, right?” Pewdie elaborates, furrowing his eyebrows at the other man. “I mean, isn’t that what the Anorak said?” Technically, the Anorak didn’t _say_ this outright but when he mentioned that Delta explored some areas more than others, he made it sound as if Delta visited that particular place a lot.

“Oh. Uh. Well…” Delta begins, smiling awkwardly and not meeting his eyes. “I don’t… go out of town a lot actually. Just by the fire engine. It’s, uh, well, it’s nice to look at some greenery sometimes, you know? Ah, no buildings, no streets, no… dead guys around…?” His words then trail off.

“Sure, I… guess.” Pewdie has a feeling he may have touched on something private for Delta. Whatever it is that Delta did by that fire engine is none of Pewdie’s business. He decides to think of something else to say instead. “So… how long have you Parkoured?”

Delta perks up a little and Pewdie thinks that the other man looks relieved for the change in topic. “Well…”

And so it goes on. Eventually, Delta decides that he is done with his cooking and finishes up his stirring, bringing the entire pot to the counter.

“What is this stuff?” Pewdie stares at the contents inside. He can make out shapes of beans, soft strips of meat, rice and some other things he thinks he recognises, but overall, he does not know what this is.

“A bit of this and that,” Delta replies mysteriously with a sheepish grin. “It’s supposed to be a lot drier than this but I figured I needed to boil this into a porridge so that you could eat it more easily.”

“Why… why would I ‘eat it more easily’?” Pewdie says warily. “What are you talking about?”

The tone in Pewdie’s voice makes Delta hesitate. “Oh,” the other man blinks, looking perplexed. “You know… ‘cos you’re not well, right? Your eyes look pretty red? Your throat’s all sore and swollen? ‘Cos you’re hurt?”

“I’m not–” Pewdie manages to stop himself from reaching up to touch his neck, feeling the heat rise up his face after Delta’s words. Like Doc, it seems as if the rest of the group have been well-informed of Pewdie’s incident from Speed.

Still, when Doc had been considerate with his food, Pewdie did not mind it. Now, when he looks at the porridge that is cooling in Delta’s pot, he cannot help but become affronted by it. Pewdie was going to be _fine_. Unless some complication arises, Pewdie deems himself well and fit for now. It didn’t help if other people treated him like an ill or injured person because for god’s sake, he was _not_ ill. He did _not_ need to be babied. He was going to be _okay._

“I’m _fine_ , you know,” Pewdie insists and hears the sharpness in his tone. “No need to treat me like I’m dying.”

“Oh, okay, okay, sorry,” Delta apologises, flushing, having sensed Pewdie’s displeasure. “Didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. Speed told me to keep an eye on you every time we hang out. I thought you came out of the op pretty bad from the way Speed described it.”

“Well, Speed is just over-exaggerating some things,” Pewdie grumbles, not really meaning what he says. This time, he reaches up to gingerly rub his neck. It still feels tender to the touch. Maybe he should stick his icepack over that area later.

To Pewdie’s surprise though, Delta lets out a huff of laughter, “Oh yeah. You’re totally right about Speed on that.” Although Pewdie knows from Speed that the latter tended to complain about Delta and Vegas a lot, it was surprising to find that this happened the other way around as well. “That guy worries too much,” Delta is just saying. “ _Really_ doesn’t like it when we leave the safe house to go into town. Worries that we might not come back. He gets extra fussy with me too because I sneak out of the compound a lot.”

Pewdie leans against the counter, recalling the joy he felt when he saw Speed and Doc waiting for the group upon arrival. “But that isn’t such a bad thing though, right? If someone worries about you? It shows how much they really care.”

“I guess.” Delta’s reply comes out exasperated. “But sometimes I really think _some_ of us needs to let go. I mean, Speed – he really wants us to be where he can see us. He’s sort of – well, I wouldn’t really call it ‘clingy’, but it’s pretty close to that. If not, he’ll just worry himself to death, wondering where the heck we are. Yet that guy won’t stick a toe out of the compound to look for us. Too scared to do it.”

Pewdie cannot help but smirk when the thought strikes him: “Is that why you and Vegas like to scare him so much?”

“That’s _exactly_ why,” Delta confirms with a grin before he stretches his arms above his head and yawns. “Man, I am so pooped!” he exclaims and makes his way over to Pewdie’s side of the counter to slump into a seat. His shoulder then presses against Pewdie’s.

“Hey,” he says, his voice soft. “I’m glad Speed thinks Cry’s okay. Nothing broken or bleeding on the outside and hopefully, none of that on the inside too.”

Pewdie smiles, pleased to have someone else share his relief. “Yeah, me too. Cry’s still knocked out cold though. But he’s breathing okay. Everything looks alright. Just waiting for him to wake up soon.”

“What about you though?” Delta asks, studying him. “You doing alright?”

“Yeah of _course_ ,” Pewdie replies a little too quickly and realises his mistake when a look of doubt crosses Delta’s face. “I mean, I’ll be fine. I think. Last night was just one crazy ride, hey? Battling through a tunnel full of zombies, a storm and then a gunfight? That _is_ pretty crazy.”

“True, and we wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for you two,” Delta points out, a grin breaking out of his face. “Seriously, we owe you guys one. I wish I’d been there to see you in action. Unfortunately, tunnels aren’t my speciality.”

Pewdie feels a sudden urge to bring up the partial concealment issue with Delta, just to see what his views were about it, but then something Vegas said last night comes to mind.

“Back then,” Pewdie begins, swallowing and is annoyed when his throat aches at the movement. “When you turned off the lights, you sent Vegas to look for us. You wanted to make sure we got out of there.”

“Of course I did,” Delta replies easily, as if this was the most obvious answer in the world. “How can I not? I’d be crushed if I left you guys alone.”

Pewdie feels an unexpected tingling up the back of his neck. “Really?”

“Hell yeah. Didn’t I mention it enough already? You guys are fucking _awesome_. And also fucking amazing. Fucking _awesome_ amazing.”

Again, that tingling sensation makes Pewdie feel almost uncomfortable. Or perhaps the feeling may be embarrassment. The way Delta is looking at him is nothing new, but now that Pewdie is paying attention, he realises that the brightness in the other man’s eyes may be due to something more.

“Dude,” Pewdie says, looking away and jostling Delta’s shoulder that is resting against his. “What could possibly be awesome about us apart from our skills in ninja-stealthing? We’re just a couple of normal guys trying to survive a zombie outbreak.”

“Oh come on. You know you’re not just that,” Delta counters with a shake of his head. His bright eyes then go soft. “Look, I think you know what I’m talking about, man – it’s _you_ two. The way you work together. The way you are together. The way you treat each other.”

“ _What_?” Suddenly, Pewdie’s face is burning.

“I’m _saying_ that you guys make a great team. You _are_ a great team. Anyone can see that – I mean, okay, so I _don’t_ know about anyone else but – _I_ can see that.”

“Delta, don’t want to burst your bubble,” Pewdie says, grimacing at how awkward he feels from the other man’s praises of admiration. “I’m sure everyone noticed us falling out on that first day, right? I’m also pretty sure you and Vegas saw us arguing when we first met.”

“So?”

“I don’t think that factor makes us _that_ much of a ‘great team’.”

“Doesn’t matter. You two are still tight. I mean, it might not seem like it but I could tell you something about Cry – dude’s looking out for you. I sometimes catch him glancing at you – like he’s worried for you. That tells you something. And then there’s you of course. V told me about how devastated you were when you thought you lost Cry.”

“Yeah, well, Cry’s my friend.”

“Exactly. And you care about him. He’s important to you.”

Pewdie is quiet for a while, a little alarmed by how transparent he and Cry actually are to the group. He does not know what Delta thinks of them or why the other man is telling him this. To him, he and Cry are still burdened with issues that continue to weigh them down until they become too heavy to carry.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Delta suddenly apologises. “I’m being a little vague and creepy with all this gushing. It’s just… there’s something _about_ you two, you know? It just makes you so… so _likeable._ ”

“Likeable?” Pewdie still cannot accept this. He also cannot understand how he and Cry could be likeable to others. They’re nothing special. They just play a lot of videogames.

He sees Delta’s face pinch in thought. “You mentioned you both had YouTube channels, right? There must be a reason why people watch you. Maybe if you two made a video together, I bet people are gonna love watching you talk to each other. It’s like that. There’s just something about you two.”

Pewdie pretends to remain oblivious to what Delta is talking about. He and Cry _had_ already made collaboration videos together. It was also quite true that viewers enjoyed watching them interact.

Perhaps Pewdie’s silence tells Delta that the former still isn’t getting the message because in the end, Delta waves his hands about, gesturing at him to disregard those last words. “Let me put it this way instead,” he tries again. “This is probably gonna sound cheesy as fuck but here it is – to me, I like to think that the two of you give the rest of us some hope, you know? I mean, I look at you and there’s something about you two that’s just so fucking _charming_. Inspiring. Hopeful.”

He pauses for a little while to draw a breath before looking at Pewdie directly. “Whatever it is, and whoever you two are, just know that I’m rootin' for ya. Okay? I’m counting on you to make it out of this hellhole alive.”

The effect of those words leaves Pewdie staring at Delta in stunned silence. A deep and profound kind of warmth suddenly blossoms in his chest, leaving him at a loss at what to say. For now, he is left to bask in this rosy glow, with his throat suddenly tight and his heart squeezing with an indescribable kind of emotion. Delta’s words had been so sincere, so overpowering, that Pewdie feels his eyes start to water.

“Oh shit.” Delta looks away, rubbing the back of his neck. His own cheeks are glowing red with embarrassment. “Shit, shit, sorry. Didn’t mean to make this whole thing sound awkward. But this became really fucking awkward. Truth is, Pewdie, I’ve always wanted to tell you and Cry this. Just didn’t expect it to happen this way.”

It is only a few seconds later that Pewdie finally finds his voice. “You – You’re really weird, you know that?”

Delta splutters. “Wha–? Me, weird? Fuck you, man. You know you love me.”

Pewdie lets out a laugh, blinking back tears. “It’s okay, man. I’m kidding. I’m _kidding._ But… thanks for that. I…” _I’m rootin' for ya,_ Delta had said. Holy _shit,_ for _real?_ “Th-Thanks. Really.” There are so many things that Pewdie wants to say but this is the best he can do for now.

They sit together in silence for a while and Pewdie uses that time to let out a deep breath, feeling a sense of newfound affection for this strange man beside him. A moment later, Delta reaches out to pull his cooking pot closer to them.

“Let’s try out this gloop together, shall we?” he offers Pewdie another grin. “If you can swallow a couple of spoonfuls more than me, you get a gold star.”

“I told you not to treat me like a sick person,” Pewdie reminds him.

“Who said you were sick?” Delta scoffs, his tone reprimanding. “Eat your damn porridge, you guinea pig, and tell me if my experiment was successful. I need to know if I can feed this to the others.”

Delta’s profound words stay with Pewdie as he goes about the rest of his day in high spirits. There is something wonderfully uplifting about feeling valued, about being offered support, about being _rooted for_. The world now was cruel and relentless. It was extraordinary that there was still someone out there who thinks he and Cry are still needed, that they deserve all the second chances they can get, that they are worthy of living another day.

Pewdie holds on to these words and keeps them close to his heart. He and Cry need this, and he is grateful that he is offered that comfort and support here, in this Fire House in the middle of a zombie-infested town. 

Sometime later, Pewdie meets up with Speed for his check-up as promised. Speed has the notebook with Pewdie’s symptoms open and ready to receive new records. After Speed poses the same questions from the last medical examination several hours before, Pewdie is happy to report that there is nothing out of the ordinary and that he is feeling fine. The bruise on his cheek still smarts, his throat is still a little painful but thankfully not becoming any worse. He is sure that this is just a minor injury, one that will fade away over time.

The next day though, everything plummets when he is hit by a sudden wave of dizziness and extreme nausea, one that is so intense and powerful that he immediately staggers to the toilets and spends half an hour there just heaving, retching, vomiting and shaking all over the toilet bowl. Once he emerges, confused and uneasy at what had happened, he rinses his mouth at the sink and almost chokes on the water when he sees his reflection in the mirror.

“What the _fuck_ …?”

Pewdie hasn’t seen his reflection after the op and this is the first time he is seeing what the others are seeing when they look at him. His face looks tired, the skin pale, clammy and drooping a little. The bruise on his cheek is a vivid purple colour, as are the terrible abrasions on his neck. Then, there are the whites of his eyes and the skin under the lids, peppered with tiny red pinpricks. He stares at himself, at the marks left from the attack at the power plant, visible for all to see. No wonder they think he looks ill. No wonder they think he may not be okay. He turns away from the mirror, disgusted at what he sees.

What the hell is happening to him? What _is_ this? Appearance aside, why did he suddenly feel so dizzy, so sick all of a sudden that he ended up vomiting? Was he actually ill? Did he eat something bad? Did he catch whatever bug that Vegas may have?

It was a blessing that the wave of nausea struck when he had been alone or else he would have been fussed over by the others. He couldn’t think of a reason why this had happened nor was he inclined to think about what the others proposed might be the cause of this sudden spell of illness.

(He tries really, really hard to ignore the possibility that this is linked to his attack, that these are the symptoms that Speed had warned him about. He’s not gonna die, he’s not. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s going to be fucking _fine_ ).

When Speed comes to check up on him later, examining him and asking him the usual questions, Pewdie does not tell him about the dizzy spell or the vomiting. Instead, when he turns in that night, he decides not to take another dose of the sleeping pills. Maybe his stomach didn’t agree with them. Maybe the pills had caused the nausea and the vomiting. Maybe this is a one-time thing and everything will be okay tomorrow.

It takes him a while to sleep but he eventually nods off to the sound of Cry’s steady breathing below him.

At first, there is nothing. A blankness. A void. Then flashes of scenery, of feeling, both blurry and unclear. He thinks it is raining heavily. That he is soaked. He hears the sound of firecrackers. Sees men coming out of a cloud of smoke. A raging river at his feet. The feel of the cold, hard floor against his back. Crushing pressure on his throat. He can’t see. He can’t move. He’s blacking out. He’s drowning. He can’t breathe. He does not know where he is.

The only thing that he is certain about is that he is fucking _terrified._

His eyes open to darkness and he does not know where he is. He does not know where he is. So he leaps–

And almost falls off the bunk-bed.

“Shit-shit- _shit,_ ” he yelps, scrabbling back onto the bed and crowding against the wall. His heart is racing wildly against his chest. He is back in their room. There is no droning sound of turbines. There are no fingers around his throat. This is their room. The Fire House. Their room at the Fire House. This _is_ the Fire House, right?

Pewdie scrambles clumsily down the ladder of the bunk, wobbling a little when his feet touch the ground. Somehow, his body cannot hold itself up when he tries to stand. He collapses onto the bottom bunk and realises that he is shaking. He reaches around for Map and Torchy, wanting to hold onto something – his sanity, perhaps – and stops.

Not a good idea. Not a good idea, Pewds.

His breaths are loud in the quiet room. His heart is still racing, rattling like a caged bird behind his ribs. His fingers bite into the mattress. He tries very hard to focus on something. _Anything._

You’re safe. You’re safe, Pewds. It was just a fucking dream. Fucking hell, I cannot believe I am freaking out over a stupid, fucking _dream_.

The longer Pewdie sits there, forcing himself to calm down, the more he becomes aware that his lower back feels warm, brushing against something solid. He moves his arm behind him and his wrist bumps into Cry’s leg.

 _Cry_ , he realises, and something in him revives itself. Cry is right here. Cry is alive. _This_ is real.

He does not know how long he stays like that, leaning against the warmth of Cry’s body behind him. What he does know is that he is listening raptly to the way Cry breathes – deep, regular, steady – and his own breathing follows, mimicking and then synchronising with the other man’s. Over time, he feels himself being put back together, being grounded back into reality. He thinks he is okay, that he _will_ be okay. This dream – _nightmare –_ is just an aftereffect. Like the darkest of nights, it, too, will pass.

Pewdie continues sitting there in the darkness, not wanting to go back to sleep. He does not want to take any more sleeping pills. And right now, he does not want to go back up the top bunk. He stays. Listens. Thinks. Breathes. Waits.

Morning eventually comes. Pewdie notices it from the way the sunrays peek through the cracks of the boarded-up windows. He rises from Cry’s bunk, his body feeling stiff, his eyes stinging, his head suddenly aching, and makes his way to the toilets, intending to take a long shower, hoping that the last few hours will be washed away. He also makes sure to flush the rest of his sleeping pills down the toilet.

“Well, look who’s up early.” Vegas is in the kitchen area when Pewdie slips into the lounge, feeling cleaner but still rather drained of energy. He offers her a half-hearted smile. He has not seen Vegas in a while and he does not expect to find her looking as tired as he feels.

“I could say the same thing about you,” he says before he takes a moment to survey the room to find no one else there with them. Vegas alone without Delta? “Have you been avoiding Delta or something?”

“Uh, _no_ ,” Vegas replies with a look that says Pewdie had asked her the stupidest question on earth. “‘m tryin’ to get away from Speed.”

“Oh,” Pewdie blinks in surprise. “Why?”

“Never you mind,” Vegas grumbles with an air of having regretted disclosing that piece of information. She motions to a stool with her head. “Have a seat, will you.”

Pewdie takes a seat. There is a spoon on the counter in front of him. He absent-mindedly picks it up.

“How’s Cry?” Vegas inquires and Pewdie’s smile returns, this time whole-heartedly. He is reminded of being in this same position when Delta asked him the same question two days before.

“Oh, so he’s finally awake?” Vegas’s eyebrows rise and Pewdie realises that she must be saying this because he is smiling so much.

“Uh, not yet actually,” he murmurs, dropping his smile while his fingers play with the spoon in his hand. “He’s still alive. So that’s a good sign to me.”

“Good to know,” Vegas agrees. “That swim downriver must have really taken a toll on him. Has he woken up at all, even for just a little bit? What kind of idiot gets knocked out for days on end anyway?”

“Only if he’s called Cry,” Pewdie chuckles. “Really, he tends to overwork himself. Goes on and on and doesn’t stop. When he finally _does_ stop, it takes him a while to recharge. He’ll wake up soon.”

Vegas gives him a sceptical look. “You sound so sure.”

“He’ll wake up,” Pewdie says again, unwavering.

“Alright. Whatever you say,” Vegas concedes with a dismissive flick of her hand. She then looks at him, studying his face. “Look, you hungry or something?” she says curtly through a scowl, as if small talk and trying to be nice were actions that were painful for her to do. “You wanna eat? I could, ah… I could probably whip you something edible. Just this one time though. Don’t get any ideas.”

“Really? In that case, some breakfast in bed? Eggs, toast and five slices of bacon?” Pewdie can’t help but tease. He regrets it afterward when Vegas snatches the spoon out of his hand and uses it to smack him on the head.

“I told you – don’t get any ideas,” Vegas mutters and tosses the spoon back to him. “That’s it. I’m feeding you that disgusting oatmeal we have here somewhere. Where the hell’s that kettle?”

Vegas is a different kind of talkative compared to Delta. Delta tended to share experiences and funny stories with his audience. Vegas, on the other hand, complains loudly to herself and makes sure that other people around the vicinity hear about it as well.

“… _Just_ because I brought my gun with me, doesn’t mean I’m gonna jeopardise the op,” she is saying, crossing her arms and glaring at the kettle she has set to boil. “It’s a _precaution_. He should know I’m smarter than that. _No guns, Vegas_. Well, Doc. Newsflash. You ain’t my mother. I know what I’m doing. Besides, we were lucky I had it with me. Even if Barbetta _was_ a bad shot, the gun would’ve still been useful if we ever get caught in the middle of those dead mobs–”

Pewdie tries to keep up with her chatter but his head has started pulsating in pain again. He squints and rubs his temple, wishing the pressure would alleviate just a little. Maybe he should go to Speed later and ask if he can have some painkillers for this stupid headache. He has not been sleeping well after all. His head needs rest, needs to stop hurting, and he can’t do that if he doesn’t get enough sleep.

He catches a glimpse of a cloudy reflection of himself on the back of the spoon he is holding. Does he look bad? He did not look in the mirror this morning so he wasn’t quite sure. Are the bruises and abrasions healing? He can still see the vivid purple colour from his reflection on the spoon. His neck still feels sore and tender as he touches it, as he traces the scabs with his thumb. If he presses here, he can feel his pulse throbbing under his finger. If he squeezes his whole hand, tightening his grip just a little like this–

His reflection stares back at him in shock. Pewdie is suddenly aware that his hand had drifted to his throat. That he has his fingers around it, pressing on it lightly. That his mind is thinking – _how long will it take for me to die if that guy kept on squeezing?_

“–d’s sake, you can stop admiring yourself on a spoon now, princess.” Something touches him and the sudden physical contact sends Pewdie scrambling backwards, the spoon slipping out of his hand. It lands into the bowl of hot oatmeal that had appeared in front of him with a clatter and a splash, causing the contents to splatter all over the counter.

“Whoa, _whoa_ there, horsie.” Vegas looks taken aback by his reaction, her hands held out in a placating gesture. “Are you okay? You freaked out all of a sudden–” Then her face suddenly changes and it is the worst thing. There, on her dark features, is an expression of understanding, of sympathy. It is clear in her eyes. She _knows._

Pewdie feels his face heat up in humiliation. He stares down at the mess he had made, clenching his teeth and fists. He can feel himself shaking. He wants to be angry.

“ _God,_ Pewdie. If you didn’t want that oatmeal so badly, all you had to do was ask,” Vegas suddenly reprimands him and she looks irritated. _Looks_ being the key word, because Pewdie senses that she is trying to cover up that glimpse of sympathy that she directed towards him earlier. Somehow, that makes him feel a little better.

“You’re right,” he croaks out and then goes to clear his throat. It is still raw, still sore. When is this stupid thing going to _heal_ and go fucking away? “That oatmeal tastes like shit.”

In the end, they clean up the mess together, Vegas continuing to berate him for making her do extra work and Pewdie secretly welcoming the very convincing bite in her words. They eventually settle down in their seats again, each holding an open can of spam. Pewdie can’t help but peek at the bottom of the can for the expiration date, remembering Delta’s previous words.

“What are you doing?” Vegas doesn’t miss his inspection. She also doesn’t waste any more time on courtesy and is already digging into her meal with her hands.

“Checking if this is expired or not,” Pewdie replies, tucking in when he is finally satisfied. He explains to Vegas what Delta has said about expired cans and that is when an idea hits him.

“Hey, have you been feeling sick lately?” he asks her and for a moment, he thinks he sees a flash of panic cross her face. “I mean, I think I might have the same sickness as you. Or something. You know, food poisoning.”

“Food poisoning?” Vegas stares at him. She looks calmer now after Pewdie’s elaboration but her face gives nothing away. Something diverts her focus from him because she glances over at the door.

“I was sick two days ago,” Pewdie explains further, trying to get back her attention. “I, uh, I threw up. Like you, I guess? I just – I really didn’t feel so well that time. I thought maybe it was because of those cans. Expired food is pretty dangerous after all.”

“I don’t think so,” says a new voice from behind him and Delta pops his head into view. Pewdie startles in his seat, unable to understand why he had not heard the door of the lounge open. It did, however, explain why Vegas’s attention shifted towards the door. She had heard and watched Delta enter the room. Why hadn’t Pewdie sensed that entry too? What was wrong with him today?  

“Hey, you okay?” Delta obviously noticed Pewdie’s reaction to his appearance. “You… seem a little jumpy today.”

“No, I’m fine,” Pewdie quickly answers. “I think you’re actually turning into a ninja. Wait, what were you talking about before? You said, ‘I don’t think so’,” he points out, intending for the question to distract the newcomer of their duo from his overreaction.

Delta falls for the trap. “Oh, right. Yeah, you saw me sort out those cans the other day, Pewdie. You saw that I was pretty thorough. So there was _no_ way I could have fed you anything that’s expired. You _couldn’t_ have gotten food poisoning. Maybe…” he hesitates for a bit, sighing. “Maybe you should see Speed. Have him check up on you.”

“But I’m fine,” Pewdie protests, his body stiffening. “It was a one-time thing. I feel a little better. Could have been an upset stomach actually. I didn’t tell you before but I kind of took some sleeping pills and maybe those didn’t agree with me. That could explain why I didn’t feel so well at that time.”

Delta scrunches his face up, looking doubtful. “I still think you should tell Speed about this. It might be important. You know, maybe this is happening because of–”

Pewdie inhales sharply, like he is bracing for the words. And sure enough, they come.

“–you know. What happened to you during the op,” Delta finishes and it is like a ball dropping to the floor. A cold sense of dread sinks into Pewdie’s stomach. His chest grows heavy and his insides squirm with discomfort. He wants out. He wants out.

He counters with the only method he can think of. Denial. “Why would you think that?” he challenges quietly but he can still hear it – the tone of defensiveness in his own voice. The sound of a cornered animal.

Vegas suddenly lets out a loud, irritated sound. Pewdie had actually forgotten that she was in the room with them until she turns to him, her face a countenance of impatience. “Because this could be a possible aftereffect. Or side-effect. Or whatever!” she snaps. “Look, stop fucking around and just go to Speedy already, Pewdie. And don’t you dare try to argue with me or I _will_ drag you to the infirmary myself.”

“But–” Pewdie starts and is cut off when Vegas suddenly steps into his space. Although she is much shorter than him, her fierce and menacing demeanour is enough to make him flinch backwards.

“Go. Now.” She orders quietly, cold steel coating her voice. “Or so help me, I will take my ice axe and bring you to Speed in _pieces_.”

Pewdie does not waste any more time or breath after that. He scarpers from the room and bumps into Speed outside the infirmary.

“Oh hey. Where you off to?” the other man asks once he straightens himself up from their collision. He is wearing the shabby fireman’s jacket again. Pewdie must have caught him post-challenge against Barbetta.

“I don’t know,” Pewdie replies. Now that he is facing Speed, he feels reluctant about disclosing what happened to him to the other man. He considers lying to Speed at first and saying nothing was wrong but he has a feeling that Vegas will find out and hunt him down. After a few seconds of consideration, he gathers up his courage and concedes.

“I have something to tell you,” he declares, his voice muffled in his throat. Speed’s eyebrows rise, catching the meaning in Pewdie’s words, and turns to open the infirmary door. “Come on in,” he says and leads them inside.

Speed is patient as he listens attentively to Pewdie’s recollection of the last few days, occasionally breaking eye contact to scribble something into his notebook. When Pewdie finally finishes, the other man leans back against his chair, eyes fixed on his notes while tapping his pen thoughtfully onto his lips.

“Thanks for telling me, Pewds,” Speed then says a few seconds later, putting the pen down and getting up. “Is it okay if you let me check you up again?”

Pewdie lets him. Halfway through the examination, his gaze falls onto Speed’s notes and he sees that the other man had drawn a rough diagram of a human head and had marked it with the locations of Pewdie’s injuries. A checklist had been scribbled next to the image: _Physical injuries – mild neck pain (reported), mild pain when swallowing (reported), fingernail abrasions, voice changes, petechia (sclera & under lids). Reported physiological symptoms: nausea & vomiting, headaches, insomnia–_

And then in smaller handwriting at the bottom of the page, Pewdie manages to make out some more words: _Unable to advise suitable treatment or medication without further examination / no means to determine whether there are internal injuries or possible brain damage without proper medical equipment / wish there was a fucking reference manual or something / best course of action for now is regular monitoring of patient–_

What the hell does Speed mean by that? Pewdie is a little alarmed by the comments on the page, by the underlying tone of frustration in the written words. Reading the notes somehow makes Pewdie’s situation all the more real. He tears his gaze away from the book just as Speed finishes his check-up. The other man’s face gives nothing away as he steps back and Pewdie dares to ask, “Is what I’m going through normal?” because now he is even more uncertain about himself than ever, and he has never felt so much dread at being so uncertain as he is right now. 

“…It _is_ , yes,” Speed confirms hesitantly. “I believe the nausea and headaches are a common thing after assaults like these. So are the sleeping problems too.”

There is something in the other man’s face that Pewdie cannot help but notice – the strain in his eyes, the way his gaze seems unsteady, unable to stay on him for very long. Speed is holding back, hiding something from him.

Speed is not the type to hold things back.

Pewdie decides to be bold and upfront about the issue. He looks at Speed in the eye and demands, “Look, Nurse PJ. Tell me the truth. I _can_ get better from this, right?”

The confronting manner catches Speed off-guard. The man falters. “Um–”

“No. _Tell me_.”

Something in Pewdie’s hard stare and persistent tone finally convinces Speed to confess. “I’m not–” the other man says and for the first time, Pewdie hears something he never thought he would hear from Speed – a tone of helplessness. Desperation.

“I’m not a doctor,” the other man blurts out, his voice coming out stifled. “But I wish I was one. I wish that I could do _more_. I wish I could just stop all this – this _sickness_ that’s taken over everything and fucked everything up. But I’m just one guy, and I can’t even tell you if you’re going to be alright from this or not! I’m not an expert, Pewds. I’m sorry. I thought I could handle it. Pretended to act all professional, like I knew what I was doing when I asked you all those questions. Truth is, I don’t know how to treat cases like yours. I’ve never even _handled_ cases like yours. All I know is that it’s a big jumble of complications. So many factors come into play. I can’t do a complete and thorough examination because we don’t have the equipment or treatment for it. I don’t know if you’re going to get better or worse from this. I just don’t _know_! And I feel really shitty about it. I’m supposed to know everything. But now you know that I don’t.”

The outburst is unexpected. Pewdie is left speechless for a moment, a little disturbed to see the usually jovial and cheerful Speed looking upset and frustrated. He had not expected Speed to have no idea what to do with him. He had expected a different sort of answer – something like: _Yes, you can get better, but we need to get a specific kind of medication and the only place we can get it is back at the hospital. That’s the biggest hotspot for zombies!_ Or – _Yes, but we need to find a_ real _doctor to treat you. We’ll have to go to another survivor camp to ask for help but we’re not on good terms with them at the moment._ Or maybe even: _I’m sorry but it’s bad news, Pewds. It’s not looking good. It’s only a matter of time._

Not this though. Not Speed collapsing like this in front of him.

It seems that Pewdie had not been the only one who was anxious about the nature of his condition. Speed was having an even harder time dealing with it compared to him. Speed was, after all, the Fire House’s only medical officer. Everyone would turn to him if anything happened, if someone needed to be cared for or tended back to health. That kind of responsibility must carry such a heavy weight on the other man’s shoulders. Shit. _Shit._ Pewdie instantly regrets putting unnecessary pressure on him.

“Bro,” he then says, and tries his best to sound reassuring. Anything to get Speed from looking as distraught as he is right now. “H-hey, don’t beat yourself up over this. We’re not expecting the sun and moon from you. Like you said, you’re just one guy. A guy who we know is doing his best.”

“Oh, I dunno. I dunno if I _am_ doing my best,” mutters Speed, sounding defeated as he folds his large frame into his swivel chair and rests his elbows onto his knees. Not a good sign. “Dammit. Pewds,” he then says, shaking his great head sadly, the eyes peeking out of his face a dull blue colour. “How much good am I doing if I don’t even know how to treat you? You must think I’m useless.”

“Stop that,” Pewdie chides because how can Speed think of himself in that way? “You looked after Cry. He got better from that hypothermia, thanks to you.”

Despite this reassurance, Speed continues to shake his head. “Nah, he got lucky. _Both_ of you got lucky. That was not me. I only tried to make him comfortable, raise his body temperature a little. That was just a small thing, though. Nothing to it. But what if the next time it _isn’t_ a small thing anymore? What if you all came in here and your injuries are so bad that I can’t fix you at all? All because I don’t know _how_?”

Speed rests his forehead onto his palm and slumps even more into his seat. “Oh _god_ ,” he moans, his voice stifled and he begins to rock pathetically in his chair, much to Pewdie’s horror. “I’m not good for anything, dude. I’m just not _enough_.”

Pewdie recoils from where he stands, not wanting to watch the scene unfold before him any longer. He realises that he quickly has to fix this because he needs Speed to be okay again, to be on top of his game, to be cheerful and positive and _willing_ enough that he finds some kind of solution to Pewdie’s condition. Speed is arguably the most important member of the group. Too often was a doctor, nurse or indeed anybody with medical experience, been the saving grace of many survivor camps. If Speed gives up now, then that would spell out trouble for everyone, not just the Fire House’s morale.

“That’s bullshit,” Pewdie says loudly as he desperately searches for words in his head that could turn this whole thing around. He reaches out to touch Speed, only because he knows that handling someone like him must always involve some form of physical contact. Speed is the type of person who craves contact with people after all. Perhaps it is a way for him to remind himself that the things he touches are still alive, are still present and standing there with him.

“Don’t say you want to be more than what you are,” Pewdie avows. “That you’re not enough. You’re already doing what you can. You shouldn’t ever be something you’re not. Unless you can be a fabulous unicorn,” he then adds and forces out a laugh – a cheery, light-hearted laugh that shakes his shoulders. “Ha-ha- _ha_! _Always_ be a fabulous unicorn.”

“Wh-What?” comes Speed’s voice in a tone of incredulity as the other man immediately lifts his head to stare at him with wide eyes. Pewdie is strongly reminded of Vegas giving him a similar expression, albeit in her case, she also had the look of someone who believed she was in the company of an absolute madman. He wonders where the hell he comes up with stupid shit like this.

Speed suddenly lets out a snort and ducks his head, trying to stifle an unexpected fit of wheezing laughter. It goes on for nearly a minute, all while Pewdie grins down at him, before he eventually quietens and shifts his gaze up to meet Pewdie’s. There is something different in his eyes this time, like he is looking at Pewdie in a new light.

“Oh _man._ You surprise me, Pewds,” he finally says. “Didn’t pin you as someone who can spin such rhetorical wisdom.”

“What can I say?” Pewdie sighs dramatically. “I have many hidden talents.”

“Maybe you and Doc should establish a club. Club Rhetoric. We’ll publish a book full of your quotes in no time.”

“Oh stop it. You’re making me blush.”

Speed lets out a hearty chuckle and Pewdie is relieved that some of his cheerful demeanour has returned. “Aww man. What was I _doing_? That was _embarrassing_. Didn’t mean to dump all that stuff on you, Pewds. I’m not the moping type. I’m always trying to keep the mood positive. I’m always trying to keep everyone together, keep ‘em comfortable, give them support. You’re like that too. I’m glad I ain’t the only person in our ragtag team who’s like that. You know, we’re quite a pair, huh?” He waves his arm, gesturing at the two of them.

“I do what I can,” Pewdie replies with a shrug. He thinks about his epiphany in the church. He thinks about Cry recovering in the bottom bunk of their room right now. He thinks about almost losing Cry to the river.

_I’m always trying to keep everyone together._

I’m trying my best to keep Cry safe.

“Hey, I appreciate it, dude. You hearing me out. Even when all the stuff I said was _not_ supposed to happen,” Speed says sincerely, clapping him on the shoulder and Pewdie cannot describe the relief he feels knowing that Speed is back to his old self. He is sure he won’t be able to stand another image of Speed rocking in that chair in distress.

Speed puts his hands on his hips, regarding Pewdie from top to bottom. “Enough about me right now. You’re still my patient. I’m supposed to be listening to _your_ woes and doing what I can to fix you up.”

“So how long do I have left then, Nurse PJ?” Pewdie asks melodramatically, gazing wistfully at him. He even pretends to swoon on the spot as he does so. “What do I need to trade so that I could keep my life for one more month?”

Speed bursts out laughing again, holding onto his shaking chest at Pewdie’s ridiculous theatrics. “You’re hilarious, dude! Even in the face of danger, you still find it in yourself to crack a joke and keep it together. Well, I may not be an expert on cases like yours. But I still know a thing or two about taking care of people.”

Good. A little positivity goes a long way. Perhaps Speed’s rekindled cheeriness can inspire him to try again, to find _some_ way to cure Pewdie. The important thing for Pewdie right now is that Speed can tell him what he should do to recover back to full health.

“The best thing right now for you, Pewds,” continues Speed. “Is to rest. Keep an eye on your body and your mental state, and come to us if anything is bothering you. _Anything._ If your neck continues to hurt or is feeling worse, we’ll need to examine it closer. Determine if there is damage in your muscles or a fracture in your neck bones. If your head gets any worse, we might consider the possibility of brain damage. If your thoughts are turning a little dark, or if you start to feel a little isolated or alone, just know that I’m here if you need some support.”

The list of possible repercussions of his attack suddenly makes Pewdie’s stomach heavy with dread again. “I’m not sure I like what I’m hearing,” he mutters, wincing.

Speed’s hands land on his shoulders. The touch is firm, compelling him to look up at the other man. “I know what you’re going through is tough,” Speed says with a smile. “But remember what I said about those other patients who went through the same thing you did? You shouldn’t think that you’re broken. You’re not a victim of an attack, or of _anything_ , Pewds. You’re a survivor _._ Remember that. Now, let’s go through each of your symptoms. See if we can find some way to deal with them. Let’s talk about…” he pauses so he can peer at the pages of his notebook. “Your insomnia? You been having trouble sleeping, is it?”

“Yeah, that too,” Pewdie replies, and then realises his mistake when Speed echoes his words: “‘That too’? Something else bothering you, Pewds?”

Pewdie had not told him about the nightmares yet. Then again, it seems that he does not need to. Pewdie’s hesitation is enough to let Speed figure it out for himself.

“You’ve been having nightmares,” the other man states, his voice going back to that faint and gentle tone that he often uses for his patients. “That’s why you wanted the sleeping pills in the first place. It’s been happening since you got back from the op.”

There is no point in denying it. “Yeah,” Pewdie admits and then falls silent, not wanting to elaborate any further. It was stupid to do so. What can anyone do to stop them from happening again anyway? Talking about nightmares seemed petty and insignificant since Pewdie is sure Speed knows what he dreams about.

“If you were thinking about taking more sleeping pills…” Speed says, his words trailing off, and it sounds as if he is about to unleash a speech about the dangers of addiction and over-reliance of medication but Pewdie beats him to it.

“Nah, I don’t want any more. I’ll find some other way to deal with this.”

Speed nods, seemingly satisfied by his answer. “Take your time with your recovery, Pewds. No rush there. Just know – if you need to talk about anything, I’ll be here. You’ve also got the others too.”

“Thanks,” Pewdie quickly replies, not wanting to linger on the subject any longer. He is grateful when Speed moves on to the next few symptoms and explains to him some possible ways to lessen them. At some point in his chattering, Speed ends up giving him some general advice when it comes to recovery.

“While you’re resting,” Speed is just saying as he motions for Pewdie to sit down. “I think it’s important that you don’t go out of the compound for a while. Delta sometimes goes out to scout the area, and if Barbetta or the Anorak get bored, they make sure to go out and clear the place of zombies. They should know better than to invite you to join them when you’re recuperating.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Pewdie says when Speed waits for him to answer. “When you say I shouldn’t go out of the compound, I could still walk around _inside_ it, right? A bro needs his fresh air too.”

Speed chuckles, “Of course you can, _bro_. But any other work that involves strenuous activities? You’re out for the count. No action for you. You just stay put, alright? No need to risk yourself so much. We got some of the others to do that for us. Vegas, Barbetta, Tesla and the rest. They’re a lot better than us. They can handle it out there. Just–” he hesitates, his face falling a little. “They handle it out there just a little _too_ well.”

“What do you mean?” Pewdie asks, not missing the unspoken concern in the man’s voice.

Speed casts his gaze around the infirmary, taking in the objects on the wall, the desk, the trophies and certificates. His expression is fond, faraway and a little bit sad.

“I like where I am now,” he explains, raising his arms in a gesture of emphasis. “Here at the Fire House. It’s safe. It feels like normal. Like nothing much has changed. It’s nice to stay in here and pretend the world outside hasn’t gone to shit. It’s just that the others – it’s hard to get them to stay _put_ sometimes, you know? Get them to understand that it’s important that we should stay together. Stay _safe_ together. Don’t change. Don’t go out there and get killed. Don’t go out there _and_ kill. Don’t lose yourself to all the crazy that’s happening out there.”

 _I wouldn’t really call it ‘clingy’, but it’s pretty close to that –_ Delta’s words echo in Pewdie’s mind for a moment. He is starting to understand why the other man would view Speed’s actions in that way. Speed was afraid of losing people, likely for the fear that he may have failed to do his job as nurse and caretaker of the group, or that he might end up alone in the middle of a zombie-infested town. Or maybe it was because he was attached to these people. They were the only ones he had left after all.

“You really take care of these guys, don’t you?” Pewdie comments, his tone gentle. “You don’t want to lose them.”

“I don’t want to lose _anybody_ on my watch,” Speed corrects, confirming Pewdie’s speculations. “And it isn’t because it’s my job as a nurse – _was_ my job as a nurse. It’s my _role_. The only role I have left. Everything else is gone. Home, family, friends. I only have myself and what I can do. Which is to keep this place and everyone else up and running. I mean, it’s important to believe that there’s always a safe place to go back to. That we believe there _is_ still a safe place.”

“Well, you’re doing a good job on that, man,” Pewdie praises, hoping that this can maintain Speed’s cheeriness before the conversation can have a chance to turn the wrong way again. “You helped make this place welcoming. It’s nice being here. It’s nice of you to let me and Cry stay. This _is_ a safe place, thanks to you all.”

“I’m glad you think that,” Speed says, looking grateful.

They then fall into a companionable silence, enjoying each other’s company for a moment before Speed speaks again, his tone casual, “You know, Pewds. I was just wondering… what happens once you and Cry get better? You dudes sticking around?” Speed’s eyes fix on him and they are watchful, unblinking.

“Ah, no actually,” Pewdie replies apologetically and he sees the noticeable slump in Speed’s shoulders after he utters those words. “We have to go somewhere. The radio tower outside of town. You know the one? We heard a message saying anyone who needs help should go there. Have you heard anything about it?”

“About a message?”

“Yeah, it was played on a loop. We heard it on our radio. You know, before we lost it.”

Speed shakes his head. “I don’t really have a clue about messages on the radio, but maybe, if you want, you could ask the Anorak to listen in on the radio waves. The dude’s a wizard with electronics. Not sure how he does it though ‘cos we don’t have a radio. But whatever it is that he _is_ using, _that’s_ how he knew when we should go do our op.”

Pewdie smiles wryly at the suggestion, already knowing that he will not ask the Anorak for help. He may have decided that he will tolerate the other man a bit more after he saved Cry, but Pewdie will certainly not ask the Anorak for any favours.

“Do you know who you’re meeting at that radio tower?” Speed asks.

“Not sure,” says Pewdie. “All we know is that we heard voices and that there’s a possibility of help.”

“What do you plan to do after that?”

“Um…” To be honest, now that the issue has been brought up, Pewdie realises that he does not _know_. He does not know what will happen once he and Cry reach their destination, whether the voices who promised to be there waiting will even be there at all. What if the people are not as friendly or as accommodating as those in the Fire House? Will they be willing to help him and Cry? Or could this be a trap to lure desperate survivors so that they can be robbed of their resources?

Dammit. He and Cry should have stopped and talked about this first before blindly heading to a destination all because of a vague and unclear set of instructions from a CB radio.

“You don’t really have a plan, do you?” Speed reveals the uneasy truth out loud.

“Haven’t thought that far out,” Pewdie admits with a sigh. “Our decision to go to the radio tower was more in-the-moment. Impulsive. I mean, we _were_ desperate and it _was_ a destination.”

“What were you expecting to find when you reach there?”

“Ah, I dunno,” Pewdie intones. “Obviously, a five course meal, some celebratory wine, a nuclear bomb that says ‘FUCK YOU ZAMBIES’ and a giant rainbow duck that can fly us to the moon.”

Speed chuckles as he goes to perch himself on the edge of his desk. “I may have never stepped out of this place before, but even _I_ know that the chances of coming across any of the things you mentioned are pretty slim, Pewds.”

“Nah, you’re right,” Pewdie decides to put the jokes aside for now and be forward for once. “We hoped that we could find some kind of help at the radio tower. That someone there can get us to someplace safe, or at least point us to the right direction. You know. _Something_.”

Silence again. Pewdie’s fingers play with the frayed sleeve of his shirt. There are no traces of blood underneath his fingernails anymore. He made sure of that when he stepped into the shower earlier that morning.

From his peripheral vision, Pewdie sees Speed lean back on his hands on the desk, making contemplative humming noises. The other man seems to be deep in thought but Pewdie can sense that his eyes are fixed on him.

“So hey,” Speed finally says, his tone once more casual. “Can I make a suggestion for you then? How about just… staying here?”

“We can’t do that,” Pewdie answers sheepishly. “We don’t want to impose on you guys any longer.”

“But you’re not imposing. And you can’t really believe we still think of you as our guests. Not after you helped us with that op a few nights ago.”

“Yeah, but,” Pewdie counters and stops, sighing as he tries to get his thoughts in order so that he can form a stronger and more convincing argument. “We can’t stay.”

“Of course you can, dude,” Speed chirps, reaching over to clap him on the shoulder. “It’s pretty easy. You just don’t go. Stay here with us. Both of you fit in so well that it’ll be a shame to just leave.”

“It’s not really that,” Pewdie tries again. “What I meant about us not being able to stay is that we can’t stay _put._ At least not for very long. We have to keep going. We have to get _out_. Out of all this. Maybe you guys should consider that too, sometime in the future.”

“But where will you go?” Speed asks. “Where are you trying to get to?”

“Someplace safe, of course.”

“And _this_ place isn’t?”

Pewdie falters. “Well... yes, it is. But–”

“Think about it, Pewds.” Speed’s grip on his shoulder is steady, almost as if the other man is determined to direct Pewdie’s focus on his next words. “You know how dangerous it is out there. It’s madness. And there’s nothing much we can do to stop that madness. _That’s_ why you’re looking for a safe place because it’s the only place left to hide in and wait until this whole ride is over, am I right? Now what better place to be in than _here_ , with the rest of us?”

Pewdie blinks and shrugs his shoulder, hoping that his jostling can loosen Speed’s hold on him. Speed’s grip, however, does not slacken. “I... I dunno,” he mumbles, looking away and wanting to avoid the other man’s gaze.

“You know that you are _more_ than welcome to stay,” Speed offers warmly. “This is the safest place you can find around here _._ We’re barricaded. We got a lookout tower. We have food and water and medicine. Sure, we might get the occasional break-in or two but no one really gets hurt from that. At least, not so much because everyone here can kick ass and then some. And anyway–” he pauses to pat Pewdie’s shoulder in emphasis. “There’s still your condition, of course. There’s a possibility that even after you recover, you might relapse. Or something. And if you do, you’d need a safe place and lots of time to get better again and we both agree that this is still the best place to do that. You got us after all, you got a support system. I mean, I’m sure you want to get back on your feet as soon as possible, eh?”

It is true. He does want to get back on his feet and not have any unwanted complications to linger around and hinder him from doing his job of looking after Cry. The more Pewdie thinks about Speed’s proposition, the more he begins to see the sense and logic in it – that the Fire House is indeed their best bet. They were lucky to find a place with food and water. They were lucky to find a house full of inhabitants who were not hostile, who was welcoming and, for the most part, pleasant to interact with. There was also clear evidence that if things were to go bad, these people can fight and defend themselves. So why waste an opportunity as good as this one?

Pewdie begins to admit that he likes the _idea_ of staying, the idea of always having a place to go back to, a place where there is a constant supply of water, a place that seems well-defended and secure. He also likes the idea of riding out this hell-wave with the company of a bunch of friends. It makes sense to him. Yet, at the same time, he cannot say that he will take the offer. He cannot give an answer, at least not _now,_ because it is not the giving-the-answer part that is the problem. It is Cry.

Cry will not agree to it. He will _definitely_ not agree to it and Pewdie knows this.

“Too much?” Speed’s voice breaks into Pewdie’s thoughts. Speed is watching him, trying to read his expression, trying to guess what Pewdie’s reply might be but it is difficult to guess if he seems hopeful or disappointed with what he finds. “It’s a lot of things to think about, is it? Maybe you need time. You don’t need to decide on anything right now, Pewds. Just know that the offer stands.”

“Thanks,” Pewdie is grateful that Speed isn’t pressing for an immediate decision. He leans back against his seat when Speed’s hand gives a reassuring pat before finally leaving his shoulder.

“So,” Speed says, hopping off his desk and straightening his shabby fireman’s jacket. “I’m getting tired of wearing this. How about I give you an opportunity to have this baby for an afternoon if I beat you in darts, eh?”

“I’m not wearing that thing again,” Pewdie tells him, getting up from his seat as well. “Do you know how hard it is to use my hands with _those_ sleeves? No thank you. Besides, you look so much better in it than me.”

“Hey, you’re just saying that to escape this torture, bro,” Speed says, playfully nudging him on the elbow. “I can’t be the only person taking one for the team.”

“Oh, leave me out of whatever weird arrangement you and Barbetta have,” Pewdie laughs, returning the nudge with a playful jab at Speed’s arm. “You’re on your own. _Bro.”_

“Aww come on, _bro_. If you win, you could have–”

Speed’s words are cut off when the door to the infirmary opens and Barbetta glides into the room, her cool gaze settling on the two occupants inside.

“Keys,” she simply says, her words directed at Speed. “The same ones I asked for last week.”

Speed looks confused for a moment, surprised that Barbetta would walk into his infirmary to demand something like that. “Same ones last week?” He echoes and then his eyes go wide with recognition. “ _Oh_ , you mean on the morning after Pewds and Cry arrived and you gave our mutual friends their exclusive haircuts?” He circles around his desk to rummage through one of the drawers to pull out a set of keys. “I don’t know why you keep giving these back to me. You could keep ‘em, you know. You’re the only one who uses that store room for whatever it is you do in there.”

Barbetta does not answer but makes her away over to Speed to retrieve her keys. She shifts her gaze onto Pewdie and Pewdie can’t help but flush under her stare.

“Speed offered you a challenge, did he? I heard his voice outside the door,” Barbetta says and something in Pewdie sinks with dread at what is to come next. “The dart board is free. Once Speed has his turn, I will be waiting to take mine.”

Which is why Pewdie ends up returning to his and Cry’s room that night wearing that stupid fireman’s jacket after a very predictable loss against Barbetta. After dumping said jacket on the floor and briefly checking up on Cry, he goes to bed with a head full of the day’s events, of Speed offering him and Cry the pleasure of staying, and of the graceful image of Barbetta, cool and collected and captivating, as she elegantly throws darts at a board.

When his mind drifts into the black sea of sleep, his dream waits to claim him. Once more, he sees and experiences flashes of scenery and feeling. Rain, river, smoke, terror. A weight on him, solid and heavy and crushing. He sinks into the cold ground, his hands flailing and fighting and still helpless. He cannot breathe. He cannot _breathe._ His world goes dark and he is falling and twisting and breaking and–

He wakes up gasping. His head hurts more than ever and when he sits up, his whole world shifts, his stomach _turns_ , and Pewdie struggles to fight off the sickening wave of nausea that is rising up his throat. He staggers down the bunk ladder and out the room as fast as his unsteady legs can carry him.

He does not vomit this time. He spends several minutes just breathing, trying to curb the queasiness that is churning his insides. His eyes sting with tears from all the dry heaving he has done over the toilet bowl and he hastily wipes them away. Once he is able to find himself again, Pewdie washes his face at the sink, not bothering to look in the mirror this time, and stumbles back into the room.

There is no hope in going back to sleep now. Pewdie absent-mindedly kicks the fireman jacket out of the room just because he can, and because he needed to work off this sudden wave of restlessness that has just come to him. He begins to pace the floor, first in small circles, then in a straight line from one end of the room to the other. The more steps he takes, the more his thoughts begin to race in his head, growing more paranoid with each passing second.

How long is this going to keep happening? _Why_ is this happening to him? When is his stupid body going to calm the fuck down and just move on with healing? Dammit, he does not have _time_ for this. This _trauma_ he is going through right now. He cannot be affected by this. He needs to be strong. He needs to be strong for Cry, needs to be strong for himself. They are in the middle of a fucking zombie apocalypse and here is Pewdie, fighting off the nightmares in his head instead of the nightmares that are walking outside their walls. This is stupid and unnecessary and, oh _god_ , why is this happening to him _?_

Now he is panicking. He can sense his thoughts scattering away from him the more he lets himself feel agitated and distressed. He has to collect himself again, snatch a moment of quiet and calmness so that he can put himself back together. He needs to think. He needs to see this in a rational light. He needs things to make _sense._ Needs to understand why he can’t seem to let this go. 

So he thinks about his dream. About the images he saw, the emotions he felt. He thinks about the incident, about the attack, about the time when he felt an arm wrap around his neck, his teeth sinking into skin, the punch to his face, the fingers around his throat, the darkness clouding his vision, the terror he feels of not being able to fight back.

 _Of not being able to fight back_. That was it. He involuntarily shudders at the realisation and looks down at his hands in the dark. He cannot see them very well but he can feel them – he is aware of them, of the feeling of clammy skin against his fingertips, the blood pumping under skin and muscle. Blood. Oxygen. _Life_. That man had taken control of his breath, his life. He could have easily had Pewdie die by his hands in under a minute or prolonged it to one torturous hour. Pewdie’s life had literally been in the man’s hands.

And Pewdie could not even fight for his own life. He was powerless. What a horrible, _horrible_ situation to be in. He cannot find the words to describe how it felt like to lie there and wait and hope and _beg_ for it all to stop.

Pewdie pauses in his pacing, and he is struck by a sudden and profound feeling of loneliness, of feeling like he is the only one who is going through this struggle on his own. He sniffles, breathes to steady himself again, reaches up to wipe away the wetness in his eyes, and returns to his pacing.

“ _Where’s… Pew–”_ A voice breathes out of the darkness and Pewdie jumps, a curse tumbling off his tongue. The voice had come from the bottom bunk. He shuffles away to the switch on the wall to flick on the ceiling lights.

A groggy Cry flinches as the lights blind him. The other man cries out in surprise, throwing his arm up to cover his face from the sudden glare of fluorescence. Pewdie almost runs to him then. The sight of Cry awake and moving sends his heart skipping with joy and relief, so much so that it is enough to dispel the thoughts that circled in his head as he paced alone in the darkness.

He takes Cry’s hand in his. “ _Geez._ You fucking _scared_ me!” Pewdie exclaims and watches Cry squint at him, trying to see him without his glasses. Pewdie cannot believe just how much he misses looking at Cry again. He is aware that his mouth is going dry, his chest is tightening with emotion, and there is a danger that his eyes might start welling up with tears again.

“… You fucking scared me when you called out my _name,_ man,” he mock-scolds Cry as a means to cover up his swelling emotions. “You called my name in the _dark._ It was so creepy. Like a ghost or something. Did you even hear yourself? No?”

They talk to each other, trying to catch up on the events after the op and it is refreshing, it is _relieving_ to speak to one another so familiarly like this again. For once, Pewdie feels a tension he never knew he had been holding slowly easing out of his body. The stress and shock from finding out the repercussions of his attack had done a number on his physical and mental being.

He is glad to discover that Cry seems perfectly fine, albeit still looking a bit drained from his jaunt in the river and the prolonged period of sleep. When the other man brings up the issue of Tesla, Pewdie finds himself a little uneasy about the topic because it forces him to recall the girl speaking to him with two voices. He insists to Cry that no sane person acts like Tesla, that they could not change their voice like she had done, that they (he) are not like them at all because “something went _wrong_ with them.” He feels a shiver run through his body as he thinks of Tesla again. “I’m getting bad vibes from her, Cry,” he warns. “We should probably be careful.”

It is interesting that Cry speculates about Tesla possibly doing the things she does because she actually wants them to stay alive. It really reminds him much of Delta telling him that the other man is rooting for him and Cry to get out of this zombie land alive.

“You okay?” Cry suddenly asks him a minute later, much to Pewdie’s confusion at first because of _course_ Pewdie is okay now. Cry is awake after all.

“No, I mean,” Cry corrects himself and his eyes bore into his, watching him carefully. “You were pacing the floor. You seemed… worried or something. Are you okay?”

Pewdie cannot help it. He _laughs_. Fucking, fucking hell. Is his condition so fucking transparent that even Cry can see it too?

“Do you want to talk about it?” Cry offers, and Pewdie stops. Because Speed had offered the same thing as well and Pewdie had outright refused to share anything. It was embarrassing after all. But with Cry, well…

In the end, Pewdie lies. He covers the strain in his voice, in his face, and anything else he thinks that could show how he really feels through the same cheerful and light-hearted laugh he’d used on Speed when he tried to get the other man to emerge from his slump. It works for a little while. Cry’s expression brightens a little when his does and when the other man begins laughing along with him, Pewdie’s laugh turns a little more genuine.

He doesn’t quite fall asleep again that night even after he bids Cry goodnight and climbs into the top bunk. He lies there in the dark and forces himself to feel grateful, to feel relief, to feel joy because he has Cry waking up and talking to him again. He wants this, he needs this, needs to hold onto something that is good and euphoric to his heart. Let him bask in this moment for a little longer before the shadows come to take him again.

The next evening, Pewdie decides that he should share some of his night terrors with Speed, only because Speed might know why Pewdie feels so nauseous after waking up. He escorts a restless Cry to the lounge and kitchen area, where they are greeted with almost the whole group. It has been a while since Pewdie has seen everyone together. All of them must have recovered back to full health. Almost all anyway.

“Hey, you don’t feel sick or nauseous sometimes, do you?” Delta, the lovable idiot that he is, asks Cry keenly. “I don’t know what’s up with everyone lately. Vegas and Pewdie have been throwing up a lot these days.”

Pewdie is grateful that Vegas is the one to step up and chew the other man out for revealing information so freely like that. “Come on. Let Speedy do his job and you do yours. That food ain’t going to heat itself,” she grumbles, pulling Delta with her to the mini-kitchen, and Pewdie has a distinct impression that Vegas is very deliberately not looking at Speed as they leave the group.

Barbetta sidles next to him while Pewdie waits for Speed to do a quick examination on Cry. “He seems to be recovering well,” the other woman comments, motioning towards Cry with an infinitesimal nod of her head.

“Yeah, finally woke up last night,” Pewdie replies, brightening at the interest that Barbetta is expressing towards Cry’s condition. “Just waiting for Speed to give us the green light. And it also looks like everyone else seems to be doing okay as well.” Then, feeling bolder than he’d thought he could ever be, he turns and tries his best to hold Barbetta’s gaze in his. “I mean, you looked pretty worn out yourself after you fought with your sledgehammer.”

Barbetta nods again. “Sledgehammer. Reliable for a one-hit kill if handled correctly. Allow twenty-four hours for full bodily recovery,” she says nonchalantly. If it weren’t for the twinkle in her eye, Pewdie would never have guessed that she may have possibly just cracked something close to a joke.

Doc wanders close to them a second later. “I take it that there are no problems with Cry?”

“Still waiting for the verdict from our medicine man,” Pewdie tells him, and the trio turn their gazes onto the pair in question.

“You must be overjoyed,” Doc says, his voice gentle and pleasant as he glances back at Pewdie. “To finally have Cry awake again.”

“You bet!” Pewdie admits, unable to hide the delight in his voice as he recalls back to the events of the night before, to the happiness that overwhelmed him for being able to speak to Cry again, to the _relief_ he feels for having something _good_ occupy his thoughts for a moment instead dwelling on the stupid condition he is in. And because he feels like sharing that happiness with someone – in this case, Doc and Barbetta – he launches into an overdramatic recollection of how he had almost jumped to the ceiling when he heard a raspy, rattling voice calling out his name in the darkness of their room last night.

He finally finds an opportunity to speak to Speed after mealtime, once he excuses himself from clearing up the mini-kitchen. Speed listens as Pewdie gives him the briefest and vaguest of his experiences during the night time before the other man lifts his gaze thoughtfully to the ceiling.

“It’s possible that the nausea is caused because your body still thinks it’s imbalanced. It can also explain the headaches as well,” Speed proposes. “As for your recurring dreams…” He then lowers his gaze to Pewdie’s. “Maybe your brain is trying to relive the strong feelings you felt during the attack?”

Pewdie thinks about his realisation the night before. He fights off a shudder. “I guess? Maybe?” he responds hesitantly.

Speed says, “You know, if you want. You could always talk.”

Pewdie scoffs at that, still reluctant about sharing everything, especially stupid things like dreams, with anyone. “Not right now. I don’t want to think about it. I mean, I’m not a kid anymore. I can handle this. That shit’s not real. I know what’s real and what isn’t.”

They exchange some friendly banter after that. Later on, Speed barks out a hearty laugh at Pewdie’s hilarious antics before he casually swings an arm around him, around Pewdie’s neck, and Pewdie lashes out to forcefully knock it away without realising it.

A second passes before Pewdie becomes aware of what just happened. He does not know why he has reacted or is acting this way, and this realisation mortifies him. His face and neck grow hot with shame. He suddenly feels an inexplicable urge to cry.

But the look of surprise on Speed’s face at his lashing out at him and the knowledge that Pewdie is still among a public are enough to hold back that impulse. He knows he needs to do something and _fast_ to turn this around now.

“ _Ticklish,_ Speed,” is the quickest and most convincing excuse he can come up with right now to save face. He pretends to dismiss this whole thing as some big, embarrassing joke, laughing cheerfully and light-heartedly along the way as he does so. “I told you I’m really _ticklish_!” He does not care that he ends up sharing a fist bump with Speed in the end. He is just greatly relieved that the other man willingly drops the subject.

That night, he lies awake in the darkness, afraid to go to sleep. The near-silence of the room, save for Cry’s quiet snoring below him, is deafening. He wishes he can stop fidgeting, stop the churning feeling in his stomach as he tosses and turns in his bunk. His thoughts keep going back to the incident earlier that evening, to that moment when Speed’s friendly touch caused him to react on impulse and he had felt that burning feeling of shame so palpably that he wanted to fucking _cry._

First, he has nightmares. Then, he is nauseous and vomiting for no reason. Now, he can’t even control the way his body reacts anymore? His attack happened _days_ ago. It should be over. Why isn’t this over?

Fucking hell _,_ he is so tired of _thinking_. He wishes he had kept the sleeping pills instead of getting rid of all of them, despite what he had said to Speed before. What he wants right now is to snatch a moment of emptiness, just a moment when his minds shuts down and does nothing so that he can wake up and find that the night had ended. He just wants the next several hours to pass by without him lapsing back into deep thought again.

Sleep claims him without him knowing it. His dream returns, vivid and even worse than before. This time, he is fully aware of the presence of his whole body. His legs lie useless and numb under him. He feels no sensation in his chest, no beating sound from his heart, yet he can hear the roar of blood rushing in his ears. His arms are the only limbs he can move and they flail about violently, scrabbling, clawing, desperately fighting against the crushing pressure on his throat. This time, he cannot see the hands that are holding him down. In fact, there _is_ no sign of his assailant. There is nobody there at all.

Pewdie is alone, and he is being strangled to death by thin air.

He wakes and he cannot breathe. He wakes, and finds his own hands clawing at his throat.

Pewdie scrambles out of bed, almost falling off the ladder in his haste to get down, and begins frantically pacing the floor. His whole body is shaking, covered in cold sweat, but the wetness he finds on his face, in the areas around his eyes, is warm.

Stifling a sob, he scrubs the remaining tears that have welled behind his eyelids with his sleeve and mutters to himself to calm down, to breathe, breathe loud and raspy breaths, to breathe slowly. In and out. Oh god just calm down. Breathe. Just breathe. In, out. Come on, Pewds. Think back, think way back to Bluey crashing, to Cry holding onto your arm. _Look at me, Pewds. You’re panicking. Just follow what I’m doing. Breathe like I do._ Breathe, one at a time. In, out. Don’t pass out. Breathe.

“Alright, I’ll bite. What is it?”

The voice coming from the darkness, interrupting his mantra, makes him jump so badly that he almost trips on his feet. “I’m not sleep-talking. I’m awake,” Cry tells him from the bottom bunk when Pewdie does not answer. “I know you’re there, Pewds. Turn on the lights.”

The seriousness in Cry’s voice tells him that the other man knows that something is wrong so there is no point for Pewdie to cover anything up. Pewdie reluctantly turns on the lights and almost shrinks back against the wall when Cry stumbles out of bed, eyes wide with alarm, and rushes up to him to take him by the wrist.

“Have you been having nightmares?” Pewdie grimaces at the word after Cry leads him back to the bottom bunk and helps him calm down with a bottle of water. _Nightmares._ Fucking hell. It is embarrassing to even speak about this, about bad dreams haunting you, stopping you from sleeping. There is not much anyone can do about something that happens in your head anyway.

“What were you dreaming about?” Cry asks and Pewdie gives a half-assed, nonsensical answer about zombie unicorn ponies because he is so, so tired to talk about this. “Was it about me?” Cry then says and Pewdie shuts up. “Were you having nightmares about me?”

Pewdie does not understand at first just why he goes quiet at that suggestion. Eventually it occurs to him that it might be because he never once had any bad dreams about Cry. This fear of losing Cry is always something that is he mulls over when he is awake and it is not a thought that he shuts out of his head or refuses to think about for fear that it would come true sooner or later. No, Pewdie uses that fear to keep himself on his toes, to remind himself of what is important, to watch Cry’s back in any way he can. The recurring nightmare he has now – this terror that he relives night after night about his own death – is different. Pewdie has no control over it the way he does when it comes to him and Cry. Perhaps that is why it keeps returning to him again and again.  

“Then… what is it?” Cry coaxes when Pewdie tells the other man that he does not dream of him. “You gotta tell me, Pewds.”

Pewdie does not know if he has the will to disclose what he goes through every night. Even if he does, he feels that he cannot find the right words for it. Despite this, he tries, for Cry’s sake, to say a little bit about it, to say some blatant little white lies (“I don’t know if I was dreaming or not just now”) and some pretty horrifying truths (“I woke up and I was cl-clawing at my own neck”). His voice breaks when he realises how shocking this all sounds like coming out of his mouth. He swallows, trying to stop his lips from trembling, “I mean, who _does_ that? In their sleep? Who _does_ that in their fucking sleep?”

“And… have you spoken with anyone? About what happened?” Cry asks him after Pewdie confesses about the struggles he had been going through during the daytime, that this isn’t just about wanting to sleep better at night. It is more than that, and _goddammit_ , it is something he wishes would go fucking away.

“Not yet,” he answers Cry with a slight shake of his head.

“Why not?”

“What is there to say? What is there to talk about?” Because talking about it was not going to make the nightmares go away. Talking about it was not going to make _anything_ go away.

He feels Cry’s hand touch his shoulder; a light, tentative touch. His hand is warm and it makes Pewdie’s body relax a little, somehow pulling his thoughts away from his current worries and miserable mood for a moment. Pewdie feels a sudden impulse to try. To try and talk about this. Even if doing so will not dispel any of his problems away.

So he tries. He talks. Cry listens and says nothing but Pewdie knows he is paying attention because he feels the hand on his shoulder squeeze him in encouragement. Before he knows it, something in him cracks and his words spill out of him in a jumbled stream: “You’re at their mercy. _Completely at their mercy…_ ” he confesses. “You’re just so fucking powerless _._ It’s… it’s _terrifying_ when you realise that.”

There is a dull pain somewhere deep in his chest as the words tumble out of his mouth, and he presses a hand over his heart, rubs it hard with his palm – because he can’t quite breathe, because it hurts, because he’s thinking about that whole experience and how he felt throughout it and it _hurts._

He thinks he hears Cry say something, something along the lines of “don’t beat yourself up” but it isn’t right. Cry doesn’t understand. Cry doesn’t understand that Pewdie _knows_ he needs to get his shit together. He needs to get over this. He needs this thing to _stop_ because he has to get back on his feet, that he has to stay strong. “I’m not a fucking _victim_ ,” he insists fiercely. _I’m a survivor._

“Something’s different,” he continues desperately to explain. “You’re not yourself anymore. It’s like you’ve lost control over yourself, and it’s fucking hard, trying not to let it get to you when… It’s–”

A wave of intense emotion overwhelms him then, and he stops speaking. His chest aches, or maybe that is his heart breaking, and it is too _much_ that he can feel it seeping throughout his body, down his spine and into his limbs. Hot tears well up in his eyes again and he ducks his head, scrubbing them away. A sob escapes him. “Oh _god,”_ he mutters and he tries hard to push back the overpowering urge to break down then and there. “I don’t ever want to feel that way ever again. I don’t _ever_ want to feel that way ever _again_.”

Then, when he feels Cry’s hands on his shoulders, pushing him to turn towards him, Pewdie manages to pull himself together, forcing down that surge of sorrow deep inside him and he is left empty and exhausted from the effort.

“Look at me, Pewds.” Pewdie’s eyes slowly rise to meet Cry’s but he does not see him through the haze of hollowness in his head. Cry continues speaking and the tone of his voice, the sincerity of his words and the fire in his eyes ignite something within him. He gradually becomes aware of Cry’s hold on him, the touch firm and solid and real.

“I got your back, pal,” Cry promises with an encouraging smile. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Hell, I’ll make _sure_ you won’t feel that way ever again.”

The words do a remarkable thing. A tingling warmth swells in Pewdie’s chest, spreading to his limbs, over his skin and up his face. He almost wants to collapse from the release of tension out of his body, from the weight of his heart suddenly feeling so full. He is so struck by the realisation – no, the awareness of who he has in front of him. Of _what_ he already has in front of him all along: Cry has been and has always had his back. Cry is the flame and the compass and the anchor that inspires him to keep going. Cry, no matter how fucking stubborn or irrational or _infuriating_ he can be, is…

Cry is–

Pewdie cannot find the words. All he knows and all he is grateful for is that Cry is _here_ and that makes it _okay._

Pewdie is going to be okay. He will fight this.

“Thanks,” he tells Cry quietly because there are too many things to say and the only way to say them all at once is this. He squeezes Cry’s hand for a moment and lets go.

“I think I’m gonna go to the kitchen. Maybe eat something. Or take a walk,” he tells Cry because he needs some space right now. He needs to think and process this. Needs some fresh air. Cry is understanding and he lets him go with a strange question that seems unlike him and Pewdie answers it with a playful smack on the arm before he turns and leaves the room.

The night sky is cloudy, the air heavy with the smell of approaching rain. Pewdie lets the door behind him swing closed as he steps outside onto the compound. He takes one breath of air, of musty earth, the sharp tang of ozone and the rotten reek of decomposition from the streets. He breathes. Waits. Thinks.

What’s next for them now? Pewdie has decided to keep fighting, no matter how many times he stumbles or falls, if it meant that Cry will always have his back. But when Pewdie thinks of the future, when he thinks of the radio tower that he and Cry had originally planned to head towards, he is uncertain of what they would find there. What do they expect to discover anyway? The road ahead is foggy and unclear and definitely unsafe. Is it still wise to carry on? Or is it best if they just stay put and wait until this whole thing is over?

Speed’s offer still stands and Pewdie already knows that Cry will not take it. But Pewdie has thought about the offer for some time now and he has already admitted to himself that it makes sense to stay here, that this place is safe and secure, and that this is an opportunity that is too good to waste. He cannot really think of a strong enough reason why he and Cry _shouldn’t_ stay.

Regardless of what conclusion Pewdie draws, he knows that Cry will still not take the offer. It does not matter why Cry won’t agree to staying or why the other man is so adamant about their plan to go to the radio tower, even when there is a possibility that there could be nothing there for them at all. If Pewdie is going to get Cry to entertain the thought of staying, what he needs to do is to ask Cry to consider Speed’s offer _himself_ , to ask Cry to stop and think about it, to think deeply and rationally about it, to consider all of their options, before making a final decision.

Whether it is a yes or a no, Pewdie does not care. All he wants is for Cry to give him a good enough reason to go – or to stay.

With that resolution in mind, Pewdie exhales, feeling more assured than he’d ever felt these past few days, and goes back into the Fire House.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **It's finally, finally done!** I cannot believe it's taken me this long. I've had about half of this chapter written a year ago, not long after I'd posted up Chapter 20, and the damn thing sat in my hard disk for months on end. I did pop in once in a while to tweak a few things, edit some others in hopes that I could ease myself into a mood to write new material. But that never happened.
> 
> Until December 2016, I told myself to get my shit together and continue writing. It was slow process. January came and went, and although I was writing things down, I still hadn't covered all the parts needed for this chapter. February arrived and I went on a writing frenzy. I also stopped every once in a while to check on the word count. This finished one right here is nearly _21,000 words_ long, by far the longest chapter I've written but it was needed and I hope that it made up for a year's worth of absence.
> 
> So, this chapter covers Pewds's perspective post-op which eventually overlaps the events of Cry's POV. Last time, we were left with some sympathy for Pewds and some uncertainty and concern from Cry. 
> 
> This time, I needed us to experience the struggles that Pewds has been going through for the past few days in order for us to understand just why he was so distressed during his confession to Cry. It also fills in some info gaps we see from Cry's POV and maybe adds a bit extra as well. At the same time, I couldn't resist some more character interaction between Pewds/Delta and Pewds/Speed. Delta's fanboying is something we've seen since we've met the guy so it's about time Delta tells Pewds why he likes them so much. (Is he perhaps voicing _our_ thoughts as well??)
> 
> The Pewds/Speed scene, especially during Speed's own confession of his fears, was actually unplanned. It was one of those things that happened when I was writing their scene and then it sort of escalated to that. Speed has always been kind of an interesting character to me, and after I'd fleshed him out a little in this chapter and understood where he came from, one couldn't help but sympathise with him and like him a little more. I have a feeling that Speed regards Pewdie in a much more favourable light now after Pewds's attempt to cheer him up.
> 
> By the way: Pewds's "You shouldn’t ever be something you’re not. Unless you can be a fabulous unicorn... Ha-ha- _ha_! _Always_ be a fabulous unicorn" is an adaptation of Pewds's quote "Don't be something you're not. Unless you can be a fabulous unicorn. Always be a fabulous unicorn" which can be found in Pewds's This Book Loves You. Plus, Delta's encouraging line, "Whatever it is, and whoever you two are, just know that I’m rootin' for ya" is kinda a shout-out to Sans from Undertale telling the player character, "I'm rootin' for ya, kid" in Cry's _Undertale_ playthrough.
> 
> This chapter introduced two other important things: Firstly, Pewds picking himself up and deciding to fight as long as Cry has his back. This is particularly influential for Pewds because although he's had Delta and Speed attempting to cheer him up in the previous scenes, it is Cry's words that clinch it for him. In fact, just Cry _being_ there, even while asleep, has helped Pewds with his struggles. 
> 
> The second important thing is Speed introducing to Pewds the idea of staying permanently at the Fire House. As we have probably guessed from Chapter 20, this is the very thing Cry has been fearing. Kinda ironic that while Cry dreads this, Pewds has already entertained the thought of staying and rather likes the idea as well. 
> 
> Overall, this chapter was hella hard to write, especially the stuff that Pewds goes through. Some of the emotions that Pewds undergoes stem from my own while others I had to rely on pure speculation. I apologise if any of Pewds's experiences or any of the medical stuff mentioned here is inaccurate. I tried my best. I hope it is still sufficient, and I hope it still brings thrills and tears for you.
> 
> I'm running out of space to write now. There's a lot of other things I want to say about this chapter but oh well. This has been one hell of a journey and we are not done yet. We still have a fucking long, long, LONG way to go.
> 
> As always, feedback is always welcome. Come rant about this story with me. I'm always around to shit out the occasional super-long reply.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Most Wonderful, Most Amazing and Most Patient Readers, you are the absolute best.
> 
> (im so sorry about this late update, posted so many months since the last one. I AM THE ABSOLUTE WORST.)

**22.**

Something is bothering Cry. Or rather, something is making him _feel_ bothered and he isn’t quite sure what it is at first.

Initially, he attributes it to Pewdie’s failure to understand his concern, for not giving him an answer that he wants to hear or perhaps for not reassuring him that of _course_ they will still be sticking to their plan. But this basis is such a trivial thing that he dismisses it afterwards. Later, he begins to think that he is just worried about the nights. It is during the nights in which he discovers how Pewdie’s nightmares can become somewhat problematic.

Especially when they end up making Pewdie almost hurt himself.

On the first night after Pewdie had shared his struggles with Cry, Cry is awoken by the sound of sheets rustling, a pair of feet stumbling down the bunk ladder, a muffled curse and a crash on the floor. He jolts up from bed and sees pitch darkness, but he can hear the sounds of someone struggling to untangle themselves from the ground. He pulls out a flashlight from under his pillow and clicks it on.

Pewdie had been lying sprawled on the floor and is just picking himself up. He looks pale and shaky again, his forehead covered in a sheen of cold sweat, and he flinches at the sudden glare of the flashlight on him. “Sh-Shit, man. Sorry. Woke you up, didn’t I?”

“What the hell happened?” Cry asks, about to slip out of bed to help him up but Pewdie waves him off and stands up by himself, rubbing the length of his arms. There is a bruise forming on his elbow from where he had collided against the floor.

“Wasn’t looking where I was going,” grumbles Pewdie. “Tripped over my own fucking feet. I-I’m okay by the way. I’ll be okay.”

“Another nightmare?” Cry says sympathetically.

“No wonder you’re called the world’s greatest detective, Batman,” Pewdie exclaims sarcastically with a smile. “Don’t worry about it. I just need to calm down, that’s all. I’ll be okay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Cry offers just in case the other man feels like unloading some of his burdens but Pewdie merely shakes his head. He seems distracted, restless – his gaze unable to stay on anything for very long, his body shifting uncomfortably from where he stands, his hands wringing together in obvious distress.

“Nah, it’s the same thing. You know about it already. Told you. I’ll be fine. I just need… I just need–” Pewdie stops to draw in a few deep breaths to steady himself.

“Pewds?” Cry says concernedly. He puts one foot on the floor, ready to get out of bed.

“Look, can I just–” Pewdie blurts out, staring hard and determinedly at the floor. “Can I just sit down here for a while?”

“What? Oh.” Cry motions at the floor near the edge of his bunk with his flashlight. “You mean right here?”

“Yeah.” Pewdie bobs his head in confirmation. “I’m– I don’t want to– I just–” he shakes his head at the jumbled words coming out of his mouth. “Can I _please_ just sit down here for a while?”

After a few seconds of bewilderment at the odd request, Cry nods. “Yeah, yeah, of course.” He then pats his mattress invitingly but Pewdie makes his way over to settle on the floor instead, his back leaning against the mattress. Cry reaches down and puts his hand on Pewdie’s shoulder. He can feel the other man trembling under his touch.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Pewdie insists again, nodding his head and curling in on himself. “I’ll be okay. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“It’s fine,” Cry reassures, squeezing Pewdie’s shoulder, wishing he can do something else to help. But if Pewdie insists he will handle this on his own and that he might need some space for himself, there is little Cry can do but respect his wishes. “It’s fine, man. Don’t say sorry. It’s not your fault. Are you _sure_ you’re gonna be okay? Is there anything else you need?”

“I just need to sit here for a moment. To calm down. I’ll be okay here. I promise. Thanks, Cry. You go to sleep now, alright?”

After a long minute, Cry reluctantly lets go of Pewdie’s shoulder, tucks the flashlight under his pillow and settles back under his sheets. He drifts off to sleep, watching Pewdie’s unmoving silhouette in the darkness.

On the morning after, Cry finds Pewdie already gone from the room. He eventually sees him in the mini-kitchen for breakfast, all traces of his distress from the previous night gone as he engages in some casual banter with Speed by the sink and helps the other man with the washing up. Barbetta is there too, although she has propped herself by the kitchen counter, not minding the noise that the other men are making while she quietly eats her breakfast. Cry sidles into the stool next to hers and returns her nod of greeting.

“Pewdie has not been sleeping well,” she tells him bluntly, much to his surprise.

“Oh,” Cry responds, his gaze shifting onto Pewdie, who appears oddly boisterous today and hasn’t yet noticed his arrival. “I… suppose he told you about that?”

“He didn’t. But one can always tell.” Barbetta takes an elegant bite out of the spoonful of dried cereal. Then her gaze rests on Cry directly, her eyes searching his face. “You seem troubled.”

This was something he does not expect. He almost startles at this observation. “I’m… I guess I am. Feeling a little bit… troubled,” he admits as there seems to be no use in trying to deny this. “Well, I’m worried about Pewdie.”

The other woman’s quiet stare prompts him to further elaborate his words. “Like you said. He’s not been sleeping well. Don’t know if he’s been sleeping at all. He’s not in top shape either. And then there’s his… well, what if he doesn’t get better? What if he’s not ready to go back out there again?”

Barbetta nods in understanding at his concern, her cool indifference never changing as she sits there, listening attentively to him. The sight of her calm and composed demeanour affirms the feelings of awe and respect he has towards her. The quiet strength which Barbetta always seems to exude is something Cry admires greatly about the woman, apart from her fantastic appearance of course, and he wonders how the hell she could be so in control of herself, how nothing seems to faze or bother her as she tries to live her life among a bunch of people in the middle of a zombie-infested town. He wishes he could be like that too, wishes he wouldn’t feel so burdened by thoughts and worries he can do little to change.  

He is just about to open his mouth and ask Barbetta how she manages to keep her cool so proficiently when the latter suddenly says, “I’m not implicating Pewdie though. I meant _you_ seem troubled. About something else.” She then pauses to study his face again.

Cry blinks, puzzled. “I don’t…?”

“Maybe ‘apprehensive’ is a better word,” Barbetta cuts in, correcting herself. Her light brown eyes find his again and it is difficult to read her gaze. “Apprehensive. As if you’re waiting for a bomb to drop.”

“I…” Cry is saved from an answer when a large hand slaps his shoulder. He jumps in his seat.

“Whoops. Sorry, Cry.” Despite the apology, Speed goes and slaps his shoulder again, the gesture making his whole body stagger, and Cry cringes away from the invasive touch. It seems that Speed and Pewdie have finally taken notice of him and have come over to greet him. Pewdie seems pleased to see Cry here as Speed prattles on about his and Pewdie’s dishwashing adventures to the pair by the kitchen counter. As Speed talks, Cry watches Pewdie closely from the corner of his eye. It is difficult to decide whether the redness in the other man’s eyes are due to the aftermath of his assault or an obvious lack of sleep.

He doesn’t think about Barbetta’s observation about him until sometime later when he and Pewdie are invited to come help mend another section of their multimedia wall with Delta and the Anorak. At some point during their task, Cry separates from the rest of the working team to go and dig through the collection of junk they sometimes used as materials for their wall. Once he drags out a thin jagged sheet of zinc, he pauses on his way back and watches the others working together from a distance.

The three of them – Pewdie, Delta and even the Anorak – make a comfortable picture of easy camaraderie. Delta is chattering enthusiastically to the other two, with the Anorak making occasional responses in the form of quipped remarks and rolled eyes while Pewdie, surprisingly and especially so in such close proximity to the Anorak, breaks into peals of laughter whenever Delta mentions something funny. The very sight makes Cry wince from where he stands. He suddenly recalls the image of Pewdie being this way with Barbetta and Doc some days ago. He remembers the way Pewdie had chatted so easily with those two, how his stance had been relaxed and contented as Cry watched their exchange from the corner of his eye while being examined by Speed. The uneasy feeling in his stomach during that moment is rising again now. Soon enough, Cry finally figures out what the feeling is, or what it might be – worry, unease, a feeling of foreboding.

No, no. It is what Barbetta had named for him – a sense of apprehension.

But apprehension towards what? What was coming? He admitted that he felt bothered, yes. He felt uneasy. He felt… _scared_. About Pewdie. About Pewdie looking like this, being like this: chatting and working comfortably with everyone else, laughing with everyone else, fitting in _too_ well with everyone else. And this was troubling. It was troubling because... Because–

And that is where Cry stops his train of thought and shuts it away from his mind. No, no, he will not entertain the idea at all. In fact, why the fuck is he even _thinking_ about this? He has a sheet of metal he needs to nail to a wall right now. He has a lot of work to do and no time to think about stupid things like this. Everything was going to be _fine._

“Need any help?” Pewdie had come over in the middle of his dragging and Cry looks up to meet the other man’s eyes. He decides to focus all his attention on examining Pewdie, taking note of how strangely eager and energetic he seems today. Now, since the other man is offering to help, Cry wastes no time transferring his hands to one side of the metal sheet and gestures for Pewdie to take the other side. Together, they drag the sheet to the others.

As they fall back into working on the wall, Cry finds himself ignoring the conversation going around him, determined as he was on his hammering. He cannot help but notice that the feeling of apprehension still lurks behind him like a dark cloud.

That night, Cry wakes again, this time to the sound of quiet whimpering, of bed springs squeaking above him. When the sounds persist, he slips out of his bunk, rubbing the grogginess out of his eyes, and ascends the ladder to find Pewdie in the midst of another nightmare, tossing and turning in his sheets.

“Pewds?” Cry calls and gently shakes the other man awake. He hears the change in breathing in the dark, and then Pewdie sits up. Freezes.

“What–?” comes Pewdie’s frightened gasp. He sounds disorientated, confused, terrified.  

“Hey.” Cry pats him on the arm and when Pewdie doesn’t respond, he finds the other man’s cold, clammy hand and squeezes it. “Hey. I’m here.”

“What–?” Pewdie says again, although this time his head swerves to face Cry in recognition. He feels Pewdie squeeze his hand back.

“I’m right here,” Cry reassures him.

He then waits back down in the bottom bunk for Pewdie to go to the toilets to wash his face. When the other man returns to the room, he goes to sit down on the floor by Cry’s bunk again like he had done the night before.

“Sorry ‘bout that.” Pewdie’s voice is subdued and fragile, coming from the darkness. “Thanks for waking me up.”

“Did you get any sleep last night?” Cry asks him and hears a snorted, “No” in return. Of course, Pewdie’s enthusiasm in the daytime had all been a ruse. He must have spent the previous night just sitting here, wide awake and waiting for the sun to rise while in a state of anxious vigilance.

“Then try to get some sleep right now,” Cry recommends. “You haven’t slept right in days. You’ll be a wreck if this keeps going.”

“Thanks, doctor. I’ll be sure to remember that not-sleeping is bad for your health,” Pewdie answers flatly. Cry frowns at his sardonic demeanour.

“ _Pewds_ ,” he reprimands.

The other man sighs. “Sorry, man. I can’t sleep,” he explains resignedly. “I can’t go back to sleep. It’s hard to go back to sleep. And I don’t– I don’t feel like going back up there, up the ladder, you know? Don’t feel safe. Kind of dangerous when you’re having bad dreams while lying how-many-feet off the ground.”

“Do you want to swap bunks again?” Cry offers, motioning between their beds with a wave of his hand.

“What? No, no. It’s not like that. I don’t need– I didn’t– It’s not…” Pewdie’s muddled explanation falters and then dies in his throat.

“Okay,” Cry says after a brief silence. “So what do you plan to do then?”

Pewdie sighs again. “I… I don’t know. Wait it out. I guess.” He sounds defeated and tired. Oh so very tired.

Eventually, Cry huffs, making a decision, and gets out of bed. “Here.” He then pushes back his bedcovers and pats the mattress pointedly. “You sleep _here_.”

“Cry, I told you. I don’t need–”

“I’m not talking about swapping bunks. You sleep here. I’ll stay here too.”

“ _What_? Oh no, no. Come on, man. I can’t do that–” Naturally, Pewdie refuses but Cry makes sure to be insistent about the matter.

“I’ll watch over you, okay?” he assures, making sure his voice is firm and resolute. “Gotta practice keeping watch for when we get back out there again. No, I’m serious, Pewds. I’ll watch over you.”

At this, Pewdie doesn’t move but Cry can sense his hesitation rather than refusal this time. He gently nudges the other man with his knee. “Come _on_ , bro. Get in there already.”

With an exasperated huff of breath, Pewdie relents, getting up from the floor to climb into the bottom bunk and slip under the covers. Cry follows after, sitting up to lean against the headboard. He feels Pewdie rustling the sheets next to him, trying to find a comfortable spot as the other man turns on his side to face the wall. The scant space between them causes the length of his back to brush against the side of Cry’s leg.

"Okay?" Cry asks, shifting a little from where he sits. He is starting to become aware of the awkwardness of them sharing a bed, even when Pewdie is the one lying down on one side while Cry merely sits on the other.

"Yeah, I'm good," comes Pewdie’s muffled reply.

They settle into silence.

As minutes continue to tick away, Cry hears no change in Pewdie's breathing nor does it show any sign of slowing down or deepening. In the end, half an hour passes by in a flash and Cry can tell that Pewdie has not yet fallen asleep.

"Pewds?" He calls out into the darkness.

A few seconds pass and then – "Hm?" Pewdie is indeed still awake.

Cry hesitates for a second, wondering what he should say. If Pewdie cannot sleep, it is obviously because he does not want to go to sleep for fear that he might relive his nightmares again. At the same time, it is also probable that Pewdie cannot sleep because he is thinking too much, his mind so anxious and restless that he is unable to make himself relax.

"Hey," he finally says, looking down at Pewdie's back. "What were you dreaming about anyway, when I woke you up just now? Was it the same thing? Is it _always_ the same thing? The thing that happened back in the power plant?"

At first, there is no answer and Cry thinks that perhaps this may not be a suitable topic to talk so openly about. Then, to his surprise, Pewdie answers him in that same subdued and fragile tone of his, "Yes. And no. Sometimes it's the same scene. Like being back there. Reliving the moment, every second of it. Sometimes it's a little different. Sometimes, there's no one there, but I'm still dying. I’m alone and I’m dying. Trying to breathe. _Couldn’t_ breathe. And no one there to help you.” He suddenly lets out a dark, mirthless chuckle. “Can you imagine how fucking scary that is?"

Cry does imagine, and he shudders at the thought of being so helpless and vulnerable. "I'm sorry that you had to go through something like that,” he says sympathetically. “But Pewds, you still need to sleep, man. You can’t just–"

"Yeah, I _know,_ " comes the exasperated interjection, sounding a lot like someone who had been told this a thousand times and has gotten sick of hearing it recited to him again and again. Then, after a brief pause, Pewdie adds, "God, I am so _tired_ , Cry."

His defeated voice makes something in Cry’s heart clench painfully in his chest. Cry reaches down to touch Pewdie’s arm and finds it tense and stiff under his hand. "Obviously, the reason why you can't sleep is because you're stressed out. You need to relax, I guess,” he suggests in a matter-of-factly tone. “Maybe you should be thinking about happy thoughts or something.”

"Huh," says Pewdie disgruntledly. "What even _counts_ as happy thoughts anyway? What's a happy thought for you?"

"You know, the things that make you happy," Cry replies offhandedly.

"Oh. Like a world with no fucking zombies?"

"Well, yeah, that too." Cry pauses for a moment to think. He reaches into the recesses of his mind, into his memories for something that was special, something that made him enthusiastic and excited, something that brought a warmth and a smile to his face. And he finds that one thing. _Yes, of course._

"Videogames," he breathes out, like the word itself is sacred and magical on his tongue. "Videogames make me happy."

Something changes in the air around them and Pewdie’s shoulder finally relaxes under his touch. Then, Pewdie turns over and lies on his back to look up at Cry.

“Videogames make me happy too,” the other man tells him and Cry is pleased to hear the bright, delighted smile in his voice. “ _God,_ I fucking miss videogames. I miss when all the shit happening now only _existed_ in videogames.”

Cry finds himself chuckling in agreement. “Hey, do you remember that zombie game we co-oped together?”

“The one where I was that fat American man and you were the hip, cool dude with the hair pick or the one where we were strong, independent ladies who couldn’t decide if we found a cow or a dog to ride into the sunset together?”

“ _Fuck_ , you actually remembered all that?”

“Of course!”

Then, it starts. They fall into an easy conversation about videogames, slipping into it so comfortably like a pair of gloves, and they chat enthusiastically about the games they used to play, the games they looked forward to playing, about the things they loved and hated when playing videogames. Although these were topics they had already visited back when they still had Bluey, it was still a welcome subject to come back to. No matter how terrible things got, no matter how crazy the world around them had become, they both agreed that videogames – the thing that enriched both their lives, the thing that brought them together – would always hold a special place in their hearts. Videogames were familiar. They held sentimental value. They felt like home.

Eventually, the silences between them lengthen when Pewdie’s voice begins to sound drowsy. Then, when Cry realises he had been talking far too much and that Pewdie had not responded to him with so much as a word, he pauses to listen and hears Pewdie breathing deep and slow beside him. He was out like a light. _Finally._

Cry manages to keep vigilant over Pewdie for about an hour or two. However, possibly due to his altered sleep schedule, he realises that his own eyes have become heavy too. When he next regains consciousness, he finds himself half-sitting, half-lying on the bed with his neck bent at an uncomfortable angle, one of his legs tangled into the sheets and something warm pressing against his arm. He sits up from his slump and stretches, wincing at the stiffness in his neck from staying in a bad position for some time. He then turns to look down at Pewdie.

The other man is still fast asleep, sprawled on his back, snoring quietly. One of his arms is stretched out carelessly towards Cry, his hand loosely curled and lying close to Cry’s arm. It doesn’t take long for Cry to figure out what this looked like: sometime in the night, Pewdie had reached out and held onto his sleeve as the both of them slept. Cry watches him for a little bit longer, listening to his steady breathing, before he pats the outstretched hand affectionately and then slips out of bed to go to the showers.

On the way there, he bumps into Vegas coming from the opposite direction. Under the fluorescent white hall lights, she looks astonishingly unkempt, like something the cat dragged in and left in the corner somewhere.

“Um. Morning,” Cry greets her with a weak smile. Vegas groans and waves her hand dismissingly at him. Cry can’t help but notice that she looks a little… green.

“Are you okay?” he voices his concern.

“What?” she grumbles and squints at him like she is trying to recognise who he is. She must have remembered because she groans again and says, “Oh, it’s you. You’re up so early. Too early. Earlier than Pewdie. What could _you_ be up to?”

“Nothing.” Cry glances back to where Vegas had come from. The door at the other end of the hallway leads to the outside of the building and it is one of the routes which you could take to reach the Watch Tower.

“Nothing, huh?” says Vegas, still squinting at him with what could only be sleep-deprived eyes. She then begins to shuffle past him to head towards the toilets. Cry calls after her, “Have you been at the Watch Tower this whole night?”

“Mostly yes and also no,” Vegas easily replies from over her shoulder. “Fucking Delta dragged me to the rooftop just now for the damn sunrise. I keep telling him that I can’t keep on climbing up there. But of course the idiot insists.” She then disappears behind the door of the Ladies.

As Cry stares at the door she had gone through, he is suddenly aware that he hasn’t seen Vegas much during the daytime in the last few days. In fact, the only time when he had seen her was on a late evening. Had she been taking Watch duties every night lately? It would definitely explain her absence during daylight hours since she would have had to sleep the days away to make up for the long nights. Cry doesn’t know her very well to wonder whether this behaviour may seem odd. He does, however, find Vegas performing frequent nightly Watch duties to be a little bit unexpected. Perhaps she sought for some action. Perhaps she was bored of being cooped up in the Fire House after something as active and purposeful as their last op. A lot of people in the group even admitted that there were days which stretched on tediously and with no excitement. Perhaps this could be Vegas’s way to handle that boredom.

Whatever it is, it isn’t Cry’s business. He isn’t one to pry and he shouldn’t really care. So he turns back around and resumes his journey to the showers.

Pewdie eventually wakes up some time later that morning and when the other man joins him, Cry makes sure to study his face again and is satisfied to find it seems looser now, more relaxed.

“How’d you sleep?” he asks out of curiosity and Pewdie beams at him.

“So much fucking better. How would’ve thought it only took you ranting about the worst voice-acting in videogames to get me to fall asleep?”

“I think you really meant the _best_ voice-acting in videogames,” Cry corrected, returning the other man’s grin and Pewdie just laughs.

It is good to see that even Pewdie’s cheeriness is a lot more genuine today.

The day continues on as usual as they waste the hours away chatting amiably with the others in the lounge/kitchen area, let themselves be ushered and challenged into a number of games at table soccer or playing cards and then afterwards, it was back to more chatting as Cry helped out with meal preparations and Pewdie had to step out for a bit to meet Speed for his regular check-up. The routine they had gone through was mediocre, easy-going, albeit tedious. But all in all, it should be fine. It should be pleasant. There should be nothing to worry about.

But Cry is beginning to realise that his daytimes have become increasingly plagued by the feelings of restlessness and being on edge. He noticed it from the way he fidgeted in his seat as he waited impatiently for Speed to pick out a card from Barbetta’s hand and when he had to steady his jittery hand as he concentrated on slicing a clove of pickled garlic in the mini-kitchen. The worst was when his eyes kept darting over to Pewdie and Speed, so absorbed as they were in their exchange of in-jokes and playful nudges, that it drove him to the point in which he had to excuse himself from the room and dash to the toilets to douse his face in cold water. 

His expression in the mirror reflected the uneasy twist in his stomach. He looked worried. He looked like he wanted to throw up. He took a deep breath and spent the next minute or so fixing his face into something neutral and composed.

He doesn’t notice how unsuccessful his attempt is until Pewdie bumps his shoulder some time later and asks if he is okay.

“What are you talking about?” Cry tries feigning innocence and watches the other man frown at him, looking unconvinced.

“Maybe I’m waking you up too often,” Pewdie muses aloud and his frown shifts to one filled with regret. Cry quickly bumps back the other man’s shoulder in reassurance.

“Hey, it’s not you, okay? Don’t worry about me, man. Just focus on you right now.”

“It’s just that you just seem… I dunno.” The frown still remains on Pewdie’s face but at least the regret has melted away. Now he just looks contemplative. “Should I be worried?”

“I told you already. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“No, it’s not that. I wanted to– oh, maybe not.”

“What, what are you talking about?” Cry asks, confused. This exchange of theirs is getting stranger by the second.

“I dunno. Maybe you’re not ready. To hear this.”

“Hear what?”

Before Pewdie can reply, the conversation is interrupted when the door to the lounge bursts open and Vegas storms into the room, having just woken up from her wacky sleep schedule, and demands that Delta make her something sweet, sour and spicy.

“Are you going to stay and help me this time?” Delta asks her but Vegas’s retreat from the room hints at her reply. Delta stares at the door as it swings shut behind her, his lips twisted into an annoyed pout. He turns to Cry and Pewdie. “That leaves you two to help out then. Again.”

Once they finish cleaning up the cooking and Delta leaves the room to deliver Vegas’s meal, Pewdie nudges Cry to the side.

“Hey, I have to go see Speed. Promised I’d help him sort out the inventory again,” he announces and Cry can’t help but notice that Speed seems so unusually attached to Pewdie these days, especially with how the man actively seeks the latter out and hovers nearby whenever they are in the same room together.

Once Cry gives a nod at this and expects Pewdie to leave, the other man lingers for a moment, gently biting his bottom lip in hesitation, as if he is holding back words.  

“What is it?” Cry prompts with a tilt of his head.

Pewdie meets his eyes and his lips stretch into an apologetic smile. “You’re going back to the room later, right? Don’t go to bed yet. Wait for me, okay? I want to talk to you about something.”

For some reason, Cry feels a sudden flare of panic in his chest. He immediately swallows it down, afraid that it might show up in his expression for Pewdie to see. “Oh sure. So, uh. What’s this about?” He forces his voice to sound casual and nonchalant but his insides are writhing with uneasiness.

“It’s…” Pewdie’s eyes dart away from his for a moment to survey the rest of the room. They aren’t the only ones in the lounge/kitchen area though. Curled up in the sofa is Tesla, surprisingly present and within sight this time, her head buried into her notebook as she sported an air of wanting to be left alone.

Despite the fact that there is very little likelihood of Tesla listening in on them, Pewdie shakes his head and says, “Y’know what? It’s kind of a sensitive thing. Confidential. So I’d rather we talk about it later when it’s just us.”

“What? You can’t tell me just a little bit about what this is gonna be about?” Cry tries joking around and he can hear the hint of desperation in his voice.

Unfortunately, Pewdie doesn’t seem to catch that hint. He reaches out to pat Cry’s arm reassuringly instead. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

Seeing that this is the most that Cry can extract from Pewdie without sounding suspicious, he reluctantly nods in understanding and steps aside to let Pewdie pass by but not without the other man’s hand giving his arm a squeeze. Soon, he is left alone in the room with only Tesla’s presence for company.

Cry contemplates on going after Pewdie at first – maybe to join him and Speed in their task or perhaps to take a walk around the compound outside, but he finds himself looking over at the sofa to observe Tesla. Tesla is almost as elusive as Vegas, if not more so, since this is the first time since the op that Cry has seen her. He wonders whether this maintained elusion may be because Tesla took on a lot more Watch tower duties than everyone else. It could be that she preferred being by herself and that she preferred her own company. Or perhaps, in reality, it was everyone else who were the ones avoiding her and, having seen this, Tesla took it upon herself to remain reclusive.

All of these thoughts swirling in his head lead Cry to wonder, to really wonder, who or what exactly Tesla is. What was her tale and her role and her thoughts in all this? Why did she behave the way she did? How did she know where to guide himself and Pewdie to go? How could she have possibly guessed that Cry might fall into the river?

As if hearing his thoughts, Tesla looks up from her notebook and meets his gaze straight on. Cry squirms in embarrassment for having been caught in his staring but Tesla does not react to his slip-up. For a moment, they are both silent, watching each other carefully across the room. Then Tesla shifts in her place on the sofa, shuffling to one side, before breaking her stare with Cry and looking down at the space beside her pointedly. Cry starts, suddenly understanding her invitation. He crosses the room, making his way to the sofa and tentatively sits down.

“You know I have questions, don’t you?” he asks and she confirms this with a quick bob of her head. She settles deeper into the sofa and closes her notebook. Cry manages to get a glimpse of the pages before the whole thing shuts. Pewdie was right. There is nothing written in them.

Now that he has been given the opportunity to ask, Cry does not know where to start. He has a lot of questions jostling for attention in his mind, all of which are in a tangled jumble, and he is finding it difficult to pick them apart and direct them to Tesla.

Fortunately, Tesla seems to have anticipated his struggle. She lifts her head up to look at him, her face carefully blank, and gives him a suggestion. “Would you like to know how we got this far?”

Her history. She is talking about her history. It is a safe and basic introductory topic to start with. Cry takes a moment to form his question, “What’s your story?”

Tesla immediately launches into her tale: “On the day it all Went Down, it’d been a school day. The news of what was going on spread so fast. They shut and locked the school gates. Told us not to go out. To stay put and wait. Help was coming. Help never came.”

There is a pause and Cry tries to imagine that first day, the day he missed the development of this madness, tries to imagine being in Tesla’s position, frozen in shock at her desk in the middle of class as the school PA system blared out reassurances and instructions for the students to remain calm. He tries to imagine frenzied parents desperately fighting through tumultuous traffic to reach their children who sat waiting for them in school. Then his mind starts to wander to a direction he usually avoids – he finds himself imagining his own sister and his niece, both striving hard to come home to him but instead losing themselves to the pandemonium of panic and fear. Then, there was himself, tucked away in bed, safe and sound and stupidly oblivious to what was happening outside of his own bedroom.

He jerks away from that train of thought. No, he promised himself he would not think about this. Thoughts like these would impede his goals. They would slow him down. They could break him. He had to focus. He _will_ focus. Right now, he will focus on Tesla’s story because he is seeking for answers to his questions.

“What happened afterwards?” he prompts.

“We waited,” Tesla continues, oblivious to his inner turmoil just now. “Soon, a lot of the teachers started leaving, wanting to go back to their own families. Some of us followed after them but most of us stayed behind. One day of waiting became one week. Then, it was one month.”

Cry’s eyes widen. “How did you…?”

“You’d be surprised by how capable a bunch of school kids can be if you left them on their own,” Tesla points out. “All the teachers were either gone or dead or have turned at that point. But we kept staying at the school. We survived. We rigged up our own security system. We scavenged for supplies in groups. We even made our own weapons.” Cry recalls Tesla’s makeshift spear during the op and realises that she must have created it herself. If she could fashion and wield a weapon of her own and survive months into the end of the world with a bunch of other school kids, then it was no wonder she lasted this long, no wonder she coped so well.

Which led to Cry wondering why on earth she was doing here now with a group of adults and not with her friends back in the school.

“We were just a bunch of kids.” Again, it is as if Tesla had expected him to ask her this question and spared him from voicing it aloud. “We didn’t always agree with each other. There were some fights. There were moments of peace. But over time, tensions grew and grew until we became two factions. One couldn’t stand the waiting. They wanted to leave the school and go find help. The other wanted to stay. To keep staying at the school because it was safe. Because we were already set up. We had a system. Why leave when you were doing so well?”

“… But then something happened, right?” Cry says, finding himself riveted by her story. Tesla, he has to admit, is quite an accomplished storyteller. “You had to leave because something happened.”

Tesla nods in confirmation. “The faction of kids who wanted to leave _tried_ to leave. They tried to sneak out of the school at night while everyone else was sleeping. Isla was one of the kids who wanted to leave.”

Before Cry can blink in confusion at the unfamiliar name, Tesla turns her face to the side, her expression altering a little, and when she next speaks, the voice that leaves her mouth this time startles him in his seat: “ _Tess was part of the faction who wanted to stay put in the school.”_

The shock of seeing her switch her personality so suddenly throws Cry off for a moment that he almost forgets what has been said. He stares warily at the young girl sitting beside him, his body unconsciously leaning away, and she calmly watches him back. This Tesla looks different. The distinction is infinitesimal, only obvious from the little tweaks in the facial muscles that make up her expression. But overall, she seems to emanate a more aggressive air, judging from the way her gaze hides something dark and distorted under the calm demeanour.

The last time Cry wanted to address this strange behaviour of hers, he felt an unpleasant chill run down his spine and an instinctual impulse to retreat when the two voices of the same girl asked him what he saw. Now, he does not know what he should do.

The face watching him changes back. “Don’t be shocked. You wanted to know the story, don’t you?” says one voice.

“ _Then listen,”_ advises the other voice. “ _And try to understand that I tried to persuade Tess to come with me. To leave the school with the others.”_

“But I didn’t want to.” Despite the bizarreness of this situation, it is fascinating to watch this smooth transition from one personality to the other. Cry finds that once he has gotten over the initial shock, he is able to follow the words this time, to return to the story and listen to it with rapt attention.

“I was scared to leave, to go outside,” the first voice continues. “I kept telling Isla that Mom and Dad might come and get us one day so we have to stay put. But she didn’t believe me. She’d given up like the others. She wanted to go. So on the night when she and the others were leaving, she woke me up. Tried to force me to go with her.”

“ _Of_ course _I wasn’t going to leave her,”_ the other voice says in a matter-of-factly tone. “ _She kind of put up a fight when I tried to kidnap her. She sounded the alarm. Everyone woke up. In the end, we had to fight our way out.”_

“It was inevitable. The tension between the kids had been building up. It was bound to snap soon.”

_“It was chaos.”_

“It was bloody.”

_“It was a massacre.”_

Cry shivers at the haunting tones present in both voices. He cannot picture a bunch of agitated and distressed school kids brutally killing each other over a disagreement like that. The thought itself sounded too outrageous, like something out of a fictional story, because stuff like that didn’t happen in real life, did it? Then again, he _is_ hiding in a barricaded Fire House smack in the middle of a fucking zombie apocalypse, talking to a girl who speaks in two voices, so crazy shit like this should be par for the course, should it not?

Said two voices continue their harrowing story:

“Not long after that, those things came. They’d always been outside. Waiting.”

“ _They heard the ruckus. Of course they got excited. There was so much noise inside. Yelling, screaming, crying.”_

“Some kids panicked. They tried to escape quietly.”

_“They opened the gate. It was a mistake. They didn’t know how many were outside.”_

“Once those things got in, everything we built just fell apart.”

Cry thinks of the school, an established safe house, crumbling down the moment its inhabitants waged war against each other and unwillingly drew in the tide of undead who had been waiting outside for the right opportunity to claim them. He can see no other way out of that – the kids would have been overrun.

“ _There was no other choice,”_ the second voice confirms Cry’s thoughts. _“They got us surrounded. The survivors had to leave. But Tess. She was angry. She said this wouldn’t have happened if I just left her alone. Let her go. Let her stay behind. She wanted to be safe. She wanted to stay.”_

Tess, Cry repeats the names in his head. Isla.

“We were fighting,” the first voice murmurs in a quiet, regretful tone. “She and I were fighting, and it happened so fast. I was so mad. I was so scared. It was an accident.”

“ _There was nothing she could do,”_ adds the second voice. “ _She had to leave.”_

“So I escaped. Left everything and everyone behind. Ran as far as I could. Tried to keep going on my own. It was hard at first. Trying to cope, to survive. Somewhere along the way, it finally hit me – what happened, what I did. It hit me because I realised Isla wasn’t with me anymore. Isla was never coming back. It was my fault. Back then… she was bleeding on the ground. I wanted to drag her out but she was fading too fast. So much blood. Not enough time. Didn’t even get to say sorry. She was only two minutes older than me.”

There is a long pause after that. Cry holds his breath, unsure of whether he should break the sudden silence. His mind is beginning to piece things together. It was becoming clear now. Tess. Isla. _Tesla_. Twin sisters.

The young girl looks up at him again and for once, Cry cannot tell which personality this is. “Do you know what happens when you lose something important to you? The most important thing in your life. The thing that anchors you, holds you together? You break. You shatter. You don’t make sense anymore. You can’t make sense of anything. The next thing you know – you just _lose_ it.”

She looks away, her eyes falling onto the notebook she cradles in her hands. Cry follows her gaze. He had never paid much attention to the notebook. He hadn’t deemed it as anything important. But now that he is, he can see, hidden amongst the cheap print of faded flowers and cartoony doodles, is a name scribbled almost inconspicuously on the cover: _Property of Isla._

“ _I came back at the right time though.”_ The second voice suddenly returns like it has been lying in wait all this time, waiting for the right moment to appear. “ _One day, she tried to put the broken pieces back together. And there I was.”_

 _“_ Because I had to. Because there was nothing left except to fall all the way down and disappear.”

 _“If it wasn’t for me, she would have died._ We _would have died. I told her not to stop. I told her to keep going. I told her to fight.”_

“So we did.”

Cry finds himself exhaling, feeling a clearness in the air that comes at the end of a tense and gripping narrative. He does not quite know what to make of this unfolding. The idea of developing a split personality consisting of yourself and your deceased twin sounded ludicrous but, as he already learned to accept, these things tend to become the new normal now that the civilised world was over. At the same time, he recalls Tess’s breakdown and her inevitable descent into madness at the realisation of her loss. He shudders and finds it terrifying. Terrifying because of what might happen to him if _he_ was the one to break down after experiencing an event as traumatising as that.

There is another thing he still wonders about though.

“Tesla,” he poses the question carefully. “Can you see into the future?”

The young girl looks at him, her face blank again, eyes wide with feigned innocence. “We don’t know what you mean.”

Cry frowns a little, wanting to elaborate with examples relating to his and Pewdie’s involvement in the op. “But then–”

She cuts into his words, her voice remaining indifferent, emotionless. “We don’t know what you mean,” she repeats.

“Okay, fine. Then what about this–” he decides it best to just rephrase the question. “Why did you want me and Pewds to be part of your op? You only asked the other guys to consider us after you told me, didn’t you?”

“You were necessary to the op,” Tesla states nonchalantly. “No one would be able to walk through those things like you two could.”

“How did you know about the tunnel?”

“The Anorak is the one who knows about the tunnel. And those things in it. He knows about the people who tried hiding in there. There were a lot of people. All it took was for one person to drop.”

“And the power plant?” And the layout and where to stash the firecrackers and the bandits who had been there all along?

“The Anorak knows a lot of things,” Tesla merely points out mysteriously. “Even _we_ don’t know all his secrets. Perhaps _he_ is the one who can see into the future.”

It seems an unlikely possibility at first but then again Anorak _does_ give off that weird impression of being able to read your mind and know which bits of you to poke at in order to rile you up into a sense of paranoia. And this is despite him insisting later on that _you_ were the culprit who had worked yourself up into a state and not himself.

Cry thinks about asking Tesla what she might already know about the Anorak but then another, more interesting question jostles for attention in his mind. “How did you know that I would fall into the river?”

For the very first time since Cry has known her, Tesla looks surprised. “We didn’t.”

“Oh don’t give me that,” Cry says dismissingly. “You told me yourself how glad you were that I didn’t drop any of my stuff, including those glow sticks.”

“In our experience, sometimes the little things you carry are the ones that save your life.” Tesla’s fingers stroke her notebook, over the name scribbled on the cover. “It is the bigger things that can be a problem. Because they become too heavy a burden to carry. In which case, you have an important decision to make. To hold onto it tighter or let it go. We find it best to do the latter. Nothing is more important to us than to keep going.”

Cry finds himself nodding in agreement at this philosophy, one that he himself also lives by. He then shuffles through the set of unanswered questions still floating in his mind and selects one – “How long have you been wandering by yourself until you ended up here?”

To his surprise (and not-surprise since it is becoming increasingly obvious that Tesla likes to dodge questions she doesn’t like answering), she begins to shift the focus of their conversation to himself:

“You’re not planning on staying.” It was not a question.

Cry shakes his head in confirmation. “No. Never did plan on staying for too long. I mean, we’re grateful to you all for the help and for giving us a place to stay for a while, but when it comes down to it… no, we already have a plan and we’re sticking to it.”

“But plans change,” Tesla points out in her usual matter-of-factly tone. “Circumstances change. Minds change.”

Something in her words seems almost _knowing,_ as if she is trying to hint at something, but at this point, there is not enough information for Cry to make anything out.

“Maybe it would, but at the end of the day, we know we have to go. To keep moving. Find some way out of all this. We can’t do that if you just stay put, right?”

Then, because he is feeling bold or perhaps a tad bit reckless, he adds cautiously, “I mean, we kind of agree with… with Isla… it’s – it’s better to leave, to look for help _yourself_ rather than wait for someone to come by.”

Something twitches in Tesla’s expression. She looks sceptical. “You really believe that?”

“About what?”

“That you _both_ agree on the same thing?”

The growing uncertainty that has been quietly simmering in Cry’s chest this whole time suddenly intensifies itself into an alarming boiling point. Panicking, he forcefully tosses it aside.

“Of _course_ I do,” he responds a little too sharply and he knows it. “We–” and then suddenly, his words falter because an image of Pewdie laughing and joking with Speed and the others suddenly flashes across his mind. Briefly shutting his eyes, he shoves that aside too.

“We have a plan,” he reiterates his statement. “We’re going to that Radio Tower.”

“ _Then why don’t you just go_?” Cry is taken aback when the second voice, Isla, decides to address him directly. “ _You’ve been_ itching _to go all this time, haven’t you? You’ve been restless. On edge. So what are you waiting for?”_

“Pewds isn’t well right now,” Cry counters defensively. “And I’m not in top shape either.”

“ _I wasn’t talking about Pewdie.”_

Cry tenses, feeling a rush of fierce protectiveness swelling in his chest. He doesn’t quite like the tone that Isla had used when speaking Pewdie’s name. “I don’t quite follow,” he remarks, his voice and gaze hard.

“Yes, you do,” says Tesla – perhaps Tess, perhaps both – it is somewhat hard to tell sometimes since the transitions between the two happen so fast. She doesn’t say anything more after that but waits as if she expects Cry to figure it out by himself.

And he does. He thinks back and realises with horror that he and Tesla are actually treading on sensitive ground, touching upon the very subject that Cry has been purposely avoiding all this time. Tesla already knows his stance on the matter of the Fire House, knows about his initial reluctance not to get involved with the affairs of the others, knows that he only wants to stop by and collect himself before setting off again. But now she is questioning Pewdie’s. Cry had been confident that he could speak for them both. But now…

“Maybe,” Tesla begins slowly and each subsequent word is enunciated with emphasis. “Maybe _you_ should just leave. And leave Pewdie behind.”

 _What?_ A flare of anger rises within him. “That’s crazy!” he snaps, not caring that he is lashing out at a girl much younger than him. “Why the fuck would I do that?”

“You can’t always push people to do what you want all the time,” Tesla remarks, unfazed by his sudden burst of aggression. “Especially if they never had the intention to leave.”

After blinking at the girl in disbelief, Cry thinks he is beginning to see why Tesla would bring up such a topic. “Look,” he then says, keeping his voice levelled and sympathetic. “I’m sorry about what happened to you. To your sister. To your friends and your school. But you can’t just compare your circumstances with mine.”

“But we _are_ similar,” Tesla points out, like it is the truth they both already know. “You’re a fighter, like us. You’re willing to push through, no matter what the circumstance. The only way to go is forward now.”

“And your point?” Cry prompts because there is obviously more that she wants to say.

“Speed won’t budge.” The sudden change in focus stuns him for a moment. “He doesn’t want to look forward. He doesn’t even want to go _outside_. He believes it’s safe here. The Fire House is safe because it’s all been set up. There is a system here. Why leave when you’re doing so well?”

It is the same. Oh god – when you break it down to the basics, it is actually the same. And the same thing is probably happening now.

“Pewdie is like Speed,” Tesla continues, oblivious to Cry’s horrifying realisation. “The both of them are not fighters. Not like us. They want to be safe. They want to stay _._ ”

 _Pewdie is like Speed._ Maybe that is why they click so well together, why they got along so easily, why Speed seems attached to Pewdie because what he sees in the latter is a kindred spirit. And Pewdie – it was obvious that Pewdie felt comfortable and secure in the Fire House, that he enjoyed (and tolerated) everyone here, that he fitted into the daily routine of the place so smoothly like a glove. Because of this, it would be reasonable to consider the possibility that the other man would naturally feel like wanting to stay… permanently.

But that only meant one thing – if Pewdie wanted to stay, then he would have to leave Cry. Even though it is Cry who will be the one departing from the safe house, he wouldn’t be leaving Pewdie behind. Pewdie would be leaving _him._

The idea seems almost too much for him to bear that with a vicious shake of his head, Cry angrily banishes it out of his mind. He stands up, his face and neck hot.

“You’re _wrong_ ,” he grates out his words to Tesla, who continues to watch him calmly from her place on the sofa. “I _know_ Pewds. We get along just _fine._ He won’t just– He’s always been following me. He’ll… he’ll follow me.” And perhaps this is the wrong thing to say.

“You can’t always push people to do what you want all the time,” Tesla goes to repeat her own words, this time with more emphasis. “One day, they’ll have had enough. They’ll put their foot down. Become exhausted of you.”

The words are like an unexpected slap in the face because Cry actually flinches, staggering backwards from their effect. He remembers the last time something like this happened to him – in an alleyway with Pewdie as the two argued back and forth about joining Delta and Vegas back at their safe house.

“ _You just keep going._ ” The memory he’d blocked from his head of that dispute came back to him – the memory of Pewdie’s hard stare and his quiet, bitter words _. “It’s exhausting sometimes, you know that? You know how exhausting it is for me?”_

Had Cry pushed him too far that Pewdie would be happy to turn to someone else if the opportunity arises? Is that why he seemed to accept the others so effortlessly? Would he be easily swayed by the idea of staying here for good?

Cry must have stood there by the sofa, stuck in his turmoil of thoughts for too long, because he jumps when Tesla gets up from her seat and brushes past him, as if she just remembered she had someplace to be. She is also murmuring to herself. Or rather, her two personalities are conversing quietly with each other.

_“–e doesn’t know it but events have already started taking place.”_

“He’ll get curious again if we keep talking about this.”

_“Doesn’t matter. It’s out of anyone’s hands. They’ll both find out soon enough.”_

Cry almost calls out to her, wanting her – or rather her two voices – to tell him what they mean because this nonsensical murmuring is doing nothing to calm his unsteady nerves. Even if Tesla refused to answer his question of whether she may or may not have clairvoyant abilities, the things she says still seem incredibly significant to him in a way he can never understand.

Before he can do so though, she suddenly stops in her tracks and glances back at him.

“You’re a fighter, Cry. But you’re carrying a burden. You have an important decision to make. Make it sooner. Do you understand?”

Still reeling from the aftereffects of his revelation, Cry weakly shakes his head at her. “No, I don’t.”

“Yes. You do.” With those final parting words, she turns and quietly leaves the room.

Cry sinks back to the sofa and presses his crossed arms on his forehead. He feels a headache coming. He feels a storm coming, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm doing something that I don't do very often - which is to split up chapters. Originally, I planned this chapter to be longer because it is all in Cry's POV. However, seeing that I'm reaching my usual target word count of 10K (Well, this one was more like 9,600+ and it ended at a good place), I thought it best to quickly post this up so I can then focus on writing the second part of Cry's POV. 
> 
> Part of why it takes me super-long to update is because I spend so much time writing and editing at the same time as that is just the way I do things. Because I wanted to cram as much shit as possible into one chapter, obviously the writing and editing bit is going to take quite a while. However, I promised myself I wanted to achieve the (nigh impossible? haha) goal of updating more than one chapter a year so - before this year goes out, I want to see if I can squeeze one more before 2018 comes and slaps me in the face.
> 
> On another note -- **1,000 KUDOS** HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS I CANNOT EXPRESS MY SHOCK AND DELIGHT AT THIS SERIOUSLY I DON'T DESERVE SO MUCH LOVE I AM SERIOUSLY THE WORST AND YOU GUYS ARE THE BOMB. So, in commemoration of this outstanding milestone, I will do my best to get one more chapter up.
> 
> Alright so what's happened? Pewds gets some help to fall asleep, Cry's fear and unrest has been defined, and Tesla finally reveals her story. 
> 
> On Pewds: I've read somewhere that if you're having problems sleeping, one way of combating this is to make yourself feel relaxed and direct your mind away from your troubles. The important thing is that your body is relaxed enough that you naturally fall asleep. If you're suffering particularly from nightmares, however, it's good to focus on happy thoughts before you go to sleep since nightmares are like your unconscious mind manifesting to you all the problems you've been hiding inside. If your thoughts before you nod off good ones, there's a likely possibility that your dreams can be good ones too. 
> 
> On Cry: Finally, two things are achieved with Cry. First, Barbetta helps define the name of the feeling that he feels. Second, Tesla defines the actual subject of those feelings... and also drags out some unwanted doubts as well. Doubts which will probably continue to grow and grow and overwhelm Cry. Seriously, this idiot needs to deal with his problems instead of shutting things out.
> 
> On Tesla: I've always planned on Tesla being a pair of twins. I don't know if its actually plausible to suddenly develop a second personality after a traumatic event in real life though since I only stole this idea from fiction. At the same time, the idea of school kids coping so well in apocalyptic situations was an element that I always liked after reading _The Enemy_ by Charlie Higson (um, i kinda borrowed tesla's spear directly from that book too because i thought it was pretty neat shhhhh). I'm kinda tired of seeing kids in apocalyptic fiction being nothing but dramatic burdens for the adult characters. It's nice to see something different for once. 
> 
> Also, if anyone notices -- Tesla's final ramblings to herself, _"...events have already started taking place"_ , _"...if we keep talking"_ and _"they'll find out soon enough"_ ... hmm, where have we heard that before? (pssttt... chapter 16). Does Tesla know something and we don't...?
> 
> I think we all know what's coming next chapter -- Pewdie mentions wanting to talk to Cry about something when he returns to their room... Look forward to that. Whoot, whoot.
> 
>  **As always, my darlings, feedback is absolutely appreciated.** For the past couple of years, it is your encouraging comments which have left me with a massive grin on my face and a firm resolve to hold on to this story and keep churning out those pesky long-winded chapters. Once more, I cannot stress on how incredibly GRATEFUL and absolutely HONOURED I am for your support and for sharing your love and your thoughts about this story with me. 
> 
> 4 years, 200,000 words and 1000 Kudos later, it's amazing that this story still stands. 
> 
> Thank you for everything, dear Readers, and see you in the next chapter!


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